The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Alabama vs. Notre Dame in the Rose Bowl
One of the things that was overshadowed during Alabama's 31-14 victory over Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff semifinal was that junior redshirt Mac Jones became the first quarterback in Crimson Tide history to pass for 4,000 yards in a season.
Jones, who left the Rose Bowl at AT&T Stadium in Texas with 4,306 passing yards, reached the milestone on an 11-yard completion to senior tight Miller Forristall.
He also only had 14 passing yards in the fourth quarter when No. 1 Alabama seemed to be holding back some with the National Championship Game yet to play.
"We definitely have a lot to clean up," Jones said.
Tua Tagovailoa held the previous record at 3,966 yards in 2018.
However, the remarkable part of is Alabama played a league-only 10-game regular season. No. 4 Notre Dame was the first non-conference opponent the Crimson Tide has faced.
Play of the game: On his third carry, senior running back Najee Harris ran and leaped over a defender for a career best 53-yard long gain. His previous high was 42 yards against Kentucky earlier this season.
Player of the game: Smith caught seven passes for 130 yards, tying the Rose Bowl record and setting the Alabama bowl mark with three receiving touchdowns. (Note: Check out where his feet are on the third touchdown in both the main photo for this story and the subsequent video tweet ...)
Statistic of the game: Smith now has 20 receiving touchdowns, making Alabama the first team in FBS history to have a player with 20 receiving touchdowns, along with 20 rushing scores from a player (Harris) during a single season.
The Good
• Mac Jones started the game 14-for-16 with 182 yards and a trio of touchdowns. he finished 25-for-30 for 297 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions. It added up to a passer rating of 201.5. He'll go into the title game with a 203.03 rating, just ahead of Joe Burrow's 202.0 NCAA record set last season.
• Smith is up to 3,750 career receiving yards, which has him on the doorstep of setting the SEC record. He's just nine shy of Vanderbilt’s Jordan Matthews at 3,759 yards (2010-13).
• Although junior cornerback Patrick Surtain II was named the defensive MVP of the game, sophomore defensive back DeMarcco Hellams may have had a breakthrough performance. Not only did he make his second career start (the first was against Georgia and he registered 11 tackles), but led the team in tackles with a career-high 12, including six solo stops and a sack.
Overall, Alabama defensive backs made 20 solo tackles.
The Bad
• Notre Dame's two touchdown drives were 15 plays for 75 yards, which took 8:03 off the clock, and 14 plays for 80 yards. The Fighting Irish also had a 10-play drive for 62 yards.
• A big part of this was Alabama taking its foot off the gas as it started to hold back for the National Championship Game, but the Crimson Tide went from averaging 14.7 yards per play in the first quarter (included 26.3 rushing, albeit on just three carries), to 6.4 in the second, 7.2 in the third and 3.2 in the fourth.
• The Crimson Tide got a little sloppy with penalties in the second half. Among the six, of course, was the 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty to Nick Saban that aided Notre Dame's final touchdown.
Said Saban: "I was out on the field about two steps because I was yelling at one of our linebackers who didn't drop in the right direction. I've done that pretty much all of my career. It wasn't during a live ball, so...
"I guess technically you're not supposed to do that. I mean, look, I'm not criticizing anybody, I'm not complaining. I'm just saying I've been a head coach for 20-some years and I've never been called for that, but I got called today. I'll have to do better the next time."
The Ugly
During his postgame press conference, Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly got visibly upset about getting numerous questions about what the Irish need to do to win a national championship. They included "How frustrating is it to just be sort of in the same place competitive-wise?" and "As you look at it, you feel like the program has gotten a lot closer, what's the first next step you feel like you guys could take or need to take?"
This for a team that went 10-2 during a pandemic and made the College Football Playoff, with its two losses to other playoff teams.
"I guess everybody needs to continue to carry this narrative that Notre Dame is not good enough," Kelly said. "Look at the scores of the games that Alabama has played all year. I think we need to start to change the narrative a little bit. This team was out there competing and having a chance to win."
