If Notre Dame and Alabama came sprinting out of a time machine tonight instead of a Sun Life Stadium tunnel, it would be the Four Horsemen leading the stampede for the Fighting Irish, and Joe Namath and Bart Starr jogging out side-by-side for the Crimson Tide.
That’s fantasy football, of course. What we’ve got instead in this BCS Championship Game is a collision of kids obsessed with their own time in the spotlight. It’s a title shot that neither team seemed capable of securing until Kansas State and Oregon were upset on the same November night, and a game that Las Vegas doesn’t think will be much of a thrill, based on the placement of Alabama as a 9.5-point favorite.
Still, the names and the colors and the traditions of Notre Dame and Alabama always promise classic results. Presented in combination, and in company with the crystal Coaches’ Trophy awarded to the national championship team, the electricity is almost enough to make South Florida feel like a real, live college football market again.
It’s as wonderful for Miami as the Florida State-Northern Illinois Orange Bowl pairing was weak. This is how you get all of America watching college football at the same golden moment, with two utterly polarizing programs out to poleaxe each other. I defy the upcoming Division I playoff format of the 2014 season and beyond to serve up anything more compelling.
Notre Dame (12-0) is going for its first perfect season in 24 years and a national title in Brian Kelly’s third season as Irish coach. Coincidentally, the last four championship coaches at Notre Dame — Lou Holtz, Dan Devine, Ara Parseghian and Frank Leahy — also struck gold in their third seasons at the school.
Alabama, meanwhile, is shooting for back-to-back national titles and the earthshaking total of three championships in the last four seasons for Nick Saban. This is a machine on overdrive, or at least it has been since shaking off a Nov. 10 loss to Texas A&M and Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel. If the Tide wins tonight, you can stack on top of everything else a seventh consecutive national title for the SEC. Not since Elvis Aaron Presley of Tupelo, Miss., has Dixie been the headquarters for such a dominating string of No. 1’s.
“Somebody has got to be an underdog,” said Kelly, whose team lost to Florida State on the off-Broadway stage of the Champs Sports Bowl one year ago. “I would say Alabama has got the (heavyweight) belt and they deserve the belt. We’ve got to take it from them.”
Them’s fighting words. The Crimson Tide (12-1) must like the sound of it because, in a stretch that defies the imagination, they’re fiddling around with the underdog role, too.
“This group has probably been one of my most favorite to coach since I’ve been at Alabama because of the expectations,” said defensive coordinator Kirby Smart, who lost three first-round talents from his unit in the 2012 NFL draft. “They didn’t have bad expectations, but a lot of the media, you guys, had bad expectations for this group. … This group to me had a little chip on their shoulder.”
All posturing aside, Alabama looked fairly flimsy at times this season. One week prior to the home loss to Texas A&M, the Tide allowed LSU’s frequently loopy quarterback Zach Mettenberger to pass for 206 yards in the second half alone. Included in that onslaught was a 90-yard touchdown drive that briefly gave the Tigers a fourth-quarter lead.
These anomalies have not been lost on the Irish, not after six weeks of devouring Alabama game tape. Neither, insist many Notre Dame players, do the Tide’s national titles from 2009 and 2011 carry much weight on the intimidation scale.
“That’s history,” said Notre Dame nose guard Louis Nix III. “We’re going to play for the national championship. It’s all about getting on the field now and playing for the now.”
Looking back has no special appeal to the Irish, who started this season unranked in the AP poll after a pair of 8-5 seasons. Even in this potentially perfect season of 2012 there have been serious trouble spots, most notably a triple-overtime squeaker with Pittsburgh in November. That same Pitt team got rolled 38-17 by Ole Miss, an SEC also-ran, in Saturday’s BBVA Compass Bowl.
That’s one comparison approach, the kind that suggests Alabama is in for a confetti shower tonight. Here’s another, the helmet-to-helmet variety, in which All-America offensive linemen Barrett Jones and Chance Warmack match muscle with All-America linebacker Manti Te’o and the rest of Notre Dame’s aggressive front seven.
“This is the bread and butter of football, man,” Warmack said. “They play smashmouth defense and we play smashmouth offense. Come Monday night, it’s going to be a big opportunity to see which team holds up.”
Ancient history in the remaking, that’s the concept. The Notre Dame program, in its 125th year, takes to this quite naturally. So does Alabama, which has been playing football for 120.
Enough with the calculation, though. Time for the battle of the name brands. The Game of Last Century is on.
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