Alabama holds off Texas to win championship game
PASADENA, California (AP)—Alabama won college football’s championship game Thursday, hanging on to beat Texas 37-21 and withstanding a comeback led by the Longhorns’ young replacement quarterback.
Alabama led 24-6 at halftime, and with Texas’ quarterback Colt McCoy out of the game with an injured shoulder, the Crimson Tide looked like strolling to victory.
However Texas, directd by backup quarterback Garrett Gilbert, got within three points with three minutes still on the clock.
He threw two touchdown passes to All-American Jordan Shipley to trim the deficit to 24-21 with 6:15 left, and after an Alabama punt, Texas took possession at the 7-yard line, 93 yards away from one of the most improbable comeback stories in the history of the game.
An Alabama holding penalty moved the ball to the 17 when Gilbert dropped back to pass and got hit from the blindside by Alabama linebacker Eryk Anders, forcing a fumble which the Crimson Tide defense pounced upon.
Three plays later, Alabama’s Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram surged into the end zone from the 1-yard line to give the Crimson Tide a 10-point lead, putting the game beyond reach.
A few minutes later, after Gilbert’s third interception of the night, Trent Richardson scored his second touchdown to make it 37-21.
The win brought back glory to one of the country’s most famous football programs, built up by Bear Bryant. This one came courtesy of coach Nick Saban, who resurrected this team in the short span of three seasons.
It previous national title was in 1992, led by Bryant’s protege, Gene Stallings. This one gives Alabama eight since the polls began in the 1930s. Its seventh Associated Press championship should be a shoo-in when the votes are tabulated.
Ingram finished with 116 yards rushing and two touchdowns, and Trent Richardson had 109 yards and two scores as Alabama beat Texas for the first time in nine meetings between two of college football’s most successful teams.
Anders’ tackle will go down with them in Crimson Tide lore, as will Marcell Dareus, who knocked McCoy down and out with an injury to his throwing shoulder on Texas’ fifth offensive play.
“I just heard a thump when I hit him,” Dareus said. “I did lay it down pretty hard. I didn’t try to, but it felt great.”
A bit later, Dareus picked off Gilbert’s shovel pass and returned it 28 yards for a TD and a 24-6 lead late in the second quarter.
But it wasn’t quite over.
“It was like we’d won the game at halftime,” Saban said. “But you can’t accept being average. You’re playing a team in the national championship game that knows how to win.”
Seeking its second national title in five years, Texas got to the game on the back of McCoy, its All-American quarterback, who often looked like a one-man show in leading the Longhorns to 13 straight wins this season.
After the injury, McCoy was asking to go back in to finish his last college game. His father, interviewed on television, said the injury wasn’t that bad.
But Texas coach Mack Brown erred on the side of caution, and McCoy spent the second half wearing a headset on the sideline, trying to encourage his teammates.
“I would have given anything to be out there because it would have been different,” he said.
