NEW ORLEANS | Forget the regular season. Forget the SEC Championship or revenge in the highest-scoring Iron Bowl of all-time or the win over then-No. 1 Mississippi State at home. Forget, too, the loss in Oxford, Mississippi to Ole Miss.
Forget 2014.
For Alabama, a new season starts with the new year and a new era of college football. The 2015 Sugar Bowl and one of the inaugural College Football Playoff semifinals constitutes a “one-game season,” Alabama head coach Nick Saban said.
“This is the only game that matters,” Saban said. “We played 13 games. And since the Ole Miss game, we’ve sort of been in a playoff of our own kind. We were always one negative experience away from being out of the mix relative to getting in the college playoff. Now that we’re in the playoff, the circumstance is really no different. So everything is about this game. I use the term be where your feet are. Everybody needs to be focused on what they need to do for this game. We prepared for this game like it is the only game that matters. And I think once we get an outcome of this game, we’ll focus on what comes next, whatever that might be.”
Alabama comes to the Superdome as the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff, faced with a stern test against a No. 4 Ohio State team that surprised many when it beat out Baylor and TCU after winning the Big 10 championship.
“I think that Ohio State has made a tremendous amount of improvement throughout their season,” Saban said. “They have some very, very good players on their team and some of those players are young players who certainly gain confidence as the season went on. And they played their best football, I think, at the end of the season. And that’s why they’re here.”
Statistically, the Buckeye’s defense has been only mildly successful for such a highly ranked team, ranked 29th in the nation in yards conceded and 23rd in points conceded, but Alabama offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin said those numbers belie a defense capable of stopping some of the best offenses in the nation. Ohio State boasts a defensive front, for example, that can compare with some of the top units in the nation, despite a lack of depth.
“I think the two inside players, the two defensive tackles, are issues because they play so hard and they get off your centers and guards,” Kiffin said. “And their two inside linebackers are very physical and their field linebacker can really run. And they leave him in there against three wides a lot and because they have the confidence that he can cover. So this is a very, very good defense. One that really if you look out, if you look all year, outside of Michigan State, which a lot of those yards are at the end of the game, people aren’t really moving the ball against these guys very much at all.”
One of those “inside players” is sophomore defensive tackle Joey Bosa, who has put together one of the most impressive seasons in the nation, garnering recognition as the best defensive player in the Big 10 and as a finalist for the Bednarik Award for the top defender in college football. Bosa’s 13.5 sacks and 20 tackles for loss rank fourth and fifth in the nation, respectively.
Kiffin said Ohio State’s elite pass rusher is especially hard to defend because the Buckeyes move him all over the defensive line, allowing him to take advantage of disguised blitzes and the weaker parts of an offensive line.
Alabama’s offensive linemen, themselves some of the best in the sport, said they are aware of Ohio State’s talent, but aren’t intimidated by it.
“They are one of the best defensive lines we’ve played this season. They are well-rounded up front and every position is really good. It’s going to be a challenge, but we are excited for it,” said senior right tackle Austin Shepherd, who will likely be the lineman most responsible for containing Bosa. “[Bosa is a] great player. One of the best defensive linemen I’ve watched on film. He’s still young, so he definitely has room to grow. Sky’s the limit for him. I’m excited to play. It’s a huge challenge for me and I love challenges, so I am excited.”
Winning that battle in the trenches will be key to Alabama’s game plan. After a breakout performance in last season’s Sugar Bowl, sophomore Derrick Henry will likely lead the way for Alabama’s intimidating rushing attack. Alabama’s usual lead rusher, T.J. Yeldon, has battled ankle and hamstring injuries in the buildup to the game but said he expects to be able to compete in the game. Henry has led the running backs in practice drills leading up to the game.
“It’s very important to get the O-line going and then us going,” Yeldon said. “That would take a lot of pressure off of [quarterback] Blake [Sims] and the wide receivers. If we can get that going, that will open up the holes for Blake and the wide receivers to make big plays.”
If Alabama can open up its passing game, Ohio State will be faced with the daunting prospect of slowing down Heisman finalist and all-time Alabama leading receiver Amari Cooper, a tour de force who Buckeyes co-defensive coordinator Luke Fickell admitted could not be contained.
“Balance is the key to everything you do,” Fickell said. “I don’t care what it is – if you’re an offense and you don’t have balance with somebody, they can gang up on different things. But, we can’t lose focus. That’s the big thing. Everybody gets caught up with, like I said, Amari Cooper and stopping Amari Cooper. Well, that’s not something you truly could do. You have to make sure you’re smart and limit the things they can do. If you focus on just one thing, the other thing is what’s going to kill you. You’ve got to have balance. That’s what I think we’ve done throughout the entire season is we’ve had the ability defensively to really continue to do what it is we’ve done, have balance in what we’ve done.”
Alabama’s defense will have to slow down the fifth-ranked scoring offense in the nation to stay alive in the Playoff. Ohio State’s offense has a new face. After several injuries, the Buckeyes have turned to third-string sophomore quarterback Cardale Jones, veteran of only one start for Ohio State. Jones led Ohio State to a 59-0 trouncing of Wisconsin, when he threw for 257 yards on 12-of-17 passing.
With only one game’s worth of film on Jones, Alabama players said they’ve been focusing on the fundamental concepts that have made Urban Meyer’s offense one of the most successful in the country.
“Haven’t changed the offense we kind of think of, and just going back to our homework and being able to read what their key concepts, what they like to do,” safety Landon Collins said. “He’s a passing quarterback. So we know that we are probably going to stick with more passing than runs from him. So we’ll just sit back and see what happens and try to roll out the first couple of series, see what he does.”
Paired with one of the most versatile receiving corps in the country and in an offense that favors deep throws, that passing quarterback could cause problems for an Alabama secondary that has looked vulnerable to aggressive aerial attacks.
“We respect them,” safety Nick Perry said. “We work on deep game all week long and they have very good receivers. Our primary goal is to go out there and compete, and know that they’re gonna try us and we got to be ready.”
Not for the first time, an Alabama football team is poised on the brink of making college football history, so close to the first championship of the modern era. For the first time in college football, a national semifinal stands in the way.
“I’m starving. Starving,” Collins said. “Starving to get this victory.”
