MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. - Tua Tagovailoa passed for 318 yards and four touchdowns as top-ranked Alabama beat No. 4 Oklahoma 45-34 Saturday night in the Orange Bowl national semifinal.
The high-scoring Sooners were selected for the four-team College Football Playoff despite a porous defense that proved no match for Alabama's diverse attack, and the Crimson Tide led 28-0 after only 17 minutes.
Alabama advances to the national championship game for the fourth consecutive season and will play Jan. 7 at Levi's Stadium - home of the NFL's San Francisco 49ers - in Santa Clara, California, taking on familiar foe Clemson. Both teams are 14-0, so the winner will become the first champion from the Football Bowl Subdivision to go 15-0.
The second-ranked Tigers beat No. 3 Notre Dame 30-3 in the Cotton Bowl national semifinal earlier Saturday. Alabama and Clemson will face off in the playoff for the fourth year in a row, and they have split two title meetings.
"They've got a great program and a great team," Tide coach Nick Saban said of the Tigers. "I'm sure it'll be a great challenge for us, and I'm sure we'll need to play better than we did today."
Tagovailoa's performance in the Sunshine State semifinal argued for a Florida recount in the Heisman Trophy vote. He finished as the runner-up to Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray but won sweet consolation by completing 24 of 27 passes with scores to four receivers.
"It's always good to see your hard work pay off," said Tagovailoa, who played on a sore left ankle.
While Tagovailoa connected on his first nine passes for 184 yards, Murray was sacked twice before he threw a pass, and his first completion came with his team already down 21-0.
Murray had one brilliant moment, a perfect deep throw on the move to Charleston Rambo in the end zone for a 49-yard score. He passed for 308 yards and ran for 109 but took several jarring hits, including when All-America nose guard Quinnen Williams dislodged Murray's helmet and forced him from the game for one play in the fourth quarter.
The Sooners (12-2) were bowled over by the Tide. When Robert Barnes tried to stop Josh Jacobs in the open field, the Alabama running back lowered his head for the collision and continued to the end zone for a 27-yard score while the Sooners safety spun to the turf, dazed and briefly unable to get up.
"Our offense really controlled the tempo of the game," Saban said. "The only time we really got stopped in the game is when we stopped ourselves."
In a matchup between the two highest-scoring offenses in the country, Oklahoma fell too far behind early.
On the first snap, DeVonta Smith turned Tagovailoa's short pass into a 50-yard gain. The Tide went on to score an Orange Bowl-record 21 points in the opening quarter.
At one point the disparity in yards was 191-0. The most noise the Sooners mustered in the early going was when linebacker Kenneth Murray talked trash with the Alabama bench - with his team trailing by three touchdowns.
Saban wasn't ready to relax, though, spiking his headset during one of his several sideline tirades. And sure enough, the Sooners mounted a rally, closing to within 11 points three times in the final 18 minutes.
But two Oklahoma onside kicks failed, and Alabama ran the final 4:23 off the clock after the Sooners' last score.
The Tide need one more win for their sixth national title in 10 seasons, and Saban moved closer to his seventh national title overall, which would break the record he shares with late Tide legend Paul "Bear" Bryant.
The Tide beat Clemson 24-6 in a semifinal a year ago and 45-40 in the title game for the 2015 season. Clemson beat Alabama 35-31 to win the championship for the 2016 season.