CFP SEMIS: Another meeting of blue bloods as Tide faces Irish
Najee Harris and the Alabama Crimson Tide will take on Notre Dame in the Rose Bowl Game (played in Arlington, Texas) on Jan. 1. (Matt Pendleton)
By TIM GAYLE
Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly woke up Sunday morning, uncertain of whether his Fighting Irish would be in the College Football Playoff after getting drilled by Clemson in the ACC Championship Game a day earlier.
“We felt like our body of work was outstanding,” Kelly told ESPN, “but when you don’t play up to your level, you open it up to somebody else making decisions. I told our team, ‘We control our own destiny going into this game. If you don’t play up to your level, you don’t control your destiny any more.’ So we knew our destiny was no longer in our hands, but our body of work was outstanding. We’ve played great football all year. We just didn’t play with the same edge against a very, very good Clemson team.”
Alabama coach Nick Saban knew exactly where his team would be ranked, just uncertain of the opponent for the Crimson Tide.
“I’m really proud of our team for the opportunity they created for themselves,” Saban said. “They handled a lot of adversity and disruptions during the course of the season to get to this point.”
The two bluebloods of college football will meet for only the eighth time in history in the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Rose Bowl, which was relocated to AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Jan. 1.
Alabama and Notre Dame staged some fabulous meetings in bowl games in 1973 and 1974 and in regular-season games in 1976 and 1980, all resulting in close losses by the Tide. In the most recent meeting, Alabama routed the Irish 42-14 in the 2013 BCS National Championship, teaching Kelly a few painful lessons in the process.
“We’ve certainly evolved since 2012 in terms of our roster,” Kelly said. “It’s a deeper roster, more physical on both sides of the ball. The ability to make plays on both sides of the ball and, quite frankly, just the size and physicality on both the offensive and defensive line is probably the biggest departure from 2012.”
Notre Dame went undefeated in 2012 leading up to the national championship game in Miami Gardens, but quickly learned they weren’t at the same level as Alabama. If Alabama’s 2012 team was a model for Kelly to follow, the 2020 Crimson Tide offense serves as a similar model.
“At first glimpse it's the proliferation of talent on offense, certainly at the wide receiver positions (and) running back,” Kelly said. “I would certainly say they're probably where they are and continue to evolve at the offensive line. I think their number two and number three running backs are as good as anybody in the country. I would probably point towards great quarterback play -- not good quarterback play, but great quarterback play – and then the skill players, in particular the wide receivers, that have really elevated the explosiveness of these Alabama offenses.”
So how do you keep pace with Alabama’s offense, Kelly was asked on Sunday.
“I followed all of their scores and they have been a buzz saw against everybody,” he said. “So I would think that there would have to be some ball control, which we can play that kind of game, and limiting big plays, right? You’ve got to make them earn it all the way down the field.”
That will be the job of Notre Dame defensive coordinator Clark Lea, who was in Nashville on Sunday at a press conference announcing the former Vanderbilt fullback as the Commodores’ new coach. Despite his new role, Lea’s undivided attention will be on Alabama, Kelly said
“If you don’t have that continuity, the collaboration of your entire staff and your team going forward against Alabama, you have no chance,” Kelly said. “So that won’t be an issue because we won’t let it be an issue.”
Both teams suffered costly injuries on Saturday, but while Notre Dame free safety Kyle Hamilton merely suffered an ankle sprain, Alabama center Landon Dickerson suffered a more serious knee injury that will shuffle the lineup for the bowl game.
“Chris Owens has played a lot of football for us,” Saban said. “He’s an experienced player. We have a lot of confidence in him. Landon is a hard guy to replace because of his leadership, his personality. He's very inspirational in a lot of ways to all of his teammates. So I don’t know that you replace a guy like that, but we have a lot of confidence in Chris Owens.
The two teams will start preparation immediately for the upcoming semifinal. Normally, each team has three weeks to get ready, but that time has been cut in half after the late start to the season. Saban said he will prepare as he does during an open date, when he has two weeks to prepare for the next opponent, while Kelly said his squad will remain in South Bend through Christmas.
“Our roster, we have as many from California as we do from any other state,” Kelly said, “so the logistics would be virtually impossible for us. Virtually all of them, or at least a great percentage of them, would have to get on planes.”
“I don’t have the heart to tell the players they can’t go home for Christmas,” Saban said, “so we’ll give them three days off for Christmas, practice a day or two before they go and have kind of a normal week when we come back.”
Teams generally practice for a week on site, but that likely won’t be the case this year. Neither team divulged their travel plans on Sunday but Saban said he would try to be as normal as possible in what is clearly an abnormal year.
“I think this whole season has been a little bit unique and abnormal in a lot of different ways, so we know exactly what the circumstance is,” Saban said. “We don't have the long break like we usually do. We’re going to try to use this week as a little bit of preparation, give our players a few days off and come back and have a pretty normal week.”