For a second straight January, Alabama football coach Nick Saban found himself at the Sugar Bowl having to balance the disappointment of a season-ending loss with pride in his team’s accomplishments.
The Crimson Tide made history by becoming the first No. 1 seed in the sport’s inaugural four-team playoff. Alabama entered New Orleans as more than a touchdown favorite against fourth-seeded Ohio State, but the Buckeyes rallied from a 21-6 deficit with four consecutive touchdowns to stun the Tide 42-35.
“I’m very proud of this team,” Saban said early Friday morning in the news conference after the game. “This team excelled all year long. They kept Alabama in the forefront of college football everywhere in the country, based on the hard work and the improvement that they made throughout the season, so I’m very proud of what this team was able to accomplish. We won the SEC and won 12 football games in a very tough conference.
“It was our goal to play our best in this game, so we would have an opportunity to play in a national championship game, but we obviously didn’t do the things that we needed to do as well as we needed to do them to have a chance to do that.”
Last January, Saban was having to discuss a team that owned an 11-0 record before a gut-wrenching loss at Auburn and a 45-31 loss to Oklahoma. That Crimson Tide team was undone in New Orleans by five turnovers, as well as Sooners quarterback Trevor Knight’s 348 yards and four touchdowns.
Alabama had more total yards than the Sooners, but that was not the case Thursday night, as Ohio State shredded the Tide for 348 first-half yards and 537 overall. The Buckeyes rushed for 281 yards behind 230 yards on 20 carries by Ezekial Elliott, who became the first to run for more than 200 yards against Alabama since Auburn’s Carnell Williams in the 2003 Iron Bowl.
“Defensively, we were just trying to be on the same page on every given play and down,” Tide junior safety Landon Collins said. “They broke out on some big plays on us, and we just couldn’t contain the edge at points. Other than that, we just tried to fight all the way to the end and finish and get the ball back to our offense.”
The Tide wound up allowing a highly uncharacteristic 1,167 yards in their Iron Bowl win and their Sugar Bowl loss. They allowed the Buckeyes to convert 10 of 18 third downs into firsts.
Alabama’s offense, which entered New Orleans averaging 490.5 yards a game, was held to 407 against the Buckeyes. Blake Sims threw three interceptions in his final college game — his third was a desperation heave from close to midfield as time expired — and the Crimson Tide were just 2-of-13 on third-down conversions.
“Ohio State has a great defense,” Sims said. “They played with a lot of passion, and because of the way they played, we didn’t have good looks here and there.”
One of those Buckeyes defenders was sophomore safety Vonn Bell from Ridgeland High School, who had a fourth-quarter interception and eight solo tackles, several of those late in the game.
The Crimson Tide had two impressive red-zone defensive stops during the first quarter and capitalized on a pair of Buckeyes turnovers to grab a 21-6 lead in the second quarter. Ohio State, however, scored twice before halftime to pull within 21-20 and went ahead to stay early in the third quarter.
Alabama squandered an 11-point lead in its lone regular-season loss at Ole Miss and lost a 14-point lead in the 2013 Iron Bowl, but the 15-point advantage was the biggest an opponent had overcome against the Tide since Auburn rallied from down 24-0 for a 28-27 triumph in 2010.
“We were up 21-6 because of two turnovers and two stops in the red area, so we really weren’t stopping them,” Saban said. “We kind of had the momentum of the game because of the turnovers that we got and converted those into scores, but I didn’t like the feel of the game even then. In the second half, I thought we played a little better and did a little better job, but we did not control the football game like we usually do, and it wasn’t anything that they did differently.
“They had a good plan. They executed it well against us, and we gave up far too many big plays in the game, which has been a problem for us toward the end of the year. When you give up big plays and you don’t get off the field on third down, you’ve got lots of problems.”
The Crimson Tide finished 12-2 and as champions of the Southeastern Conference for a 24th time and a third time under Saban. Collins and record-setting junior receiver Amari Cooper could announce in the days ahead that they are forgoing their final season of eligibility for the NFL draft, as could tailback T.J. Yeldon.
Losing underclassmen is nothing new for Saban, who must again restock his powerful program after another season-ending loss in New Orleans.
“There are a lot of lessons to be learned when you have success, and there are also a lot of lessons to learn when you have failings,” Saban said. “Hopefully we’ll learn a lot from this experience and that will help us in the offseason. I don’t really think that we’re going to change our philosophy in terms of how we do things. That philosophy has helped us win a lot of games, and hopefully it will continue to do the same thing in the future.”
Tide tidbits
Alabama wound up running 1,018 offense plays this season, breaking the mark of 962 set by Saban’s first team in 2007. … The Tide also set a program record this season with 32 passing touchdowns. … Freshman punter JK Scott capped a fantastic debut year by averaging 55 yards against the Buckeyes, which is an Alabama bowl-game record.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.