Whether you watched to the end or somehow missed the BCS championship game, here are 10 notes to help you at the water cooler today.
(Oh. Crimson Tide won it in a walk, Alabama 42 Notre Dame 14)
1. What the headline writers said: How many verbs can you think of for an overwhelming football victory? AP: Bashes; CNN: Overmatches; SFGate.com: Routs: USA Today: Blowout; Twitter: #Fail ; Choose your own word (from Thesaurus.com): Whipping, Thrashing, Drubbing Licking, Trouncing. You get the idea. One of our favorites? From the Wall Street Journal: Alabama did what Alabama does.
2. The Polls: Alabama, as one might expect, is No. 1 in the final AP Poll. Notre Dame dropped to 4th. Georgia was No. 5, tied with SEC newcomer Texas A&M. Fun fact: This is the 9th No. 1 finish for Alabama in the AP Poll.
3. SEC bragging rights. AJC's Mark Bradley, who watched the game in person, notes: "Three of the past four BCS title games have been won by Alabama, and four of the past 10 championships have been taken by Saban. What began as domination by a conference has yielded to the singular excellence of one driven man. College football has its Krzyzewski, meaning a coach who isn't just the best but the best by such a distance as to make it seem unfair." Read his morning-after column.
4. Get the picture: Alabama's Eddie Lacy is featured in many of the great photos of the game, including a dash to the end zone past an airborne Irish defender. And then post-game, somebody gave lineman Alphonse Taylor this newspaper headline. More BCS championship game photos.
5. Where will the 2014 season championship be played? Did you hear it could be Atlanta? The 2014 season will be the first played under the new national championship rules. The BCS has one more season in charge of determining national bragging rights.
6. Public display of irritation. Did you hear about the squabble on national TV between the quarterback AJ McCarron and his center, Barrett Jones, in the fourth quarter? Remember they were winning. Here's the explanation from the Palm Beach Post. Read more about AJ McCarron's performance.
7. Telling stats: How does Nick Saban stack up to The Bear, legendary Alabama Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant? The Bear had six national championships. Saban now has four. From AP's look at the Fighting Irish: "By halftime, the Irish had already given up more points than they had in any game this season, the previous high being 26 in a triple-overtime win over Pittsburgh. The most yards Notre Dame gave up this season was 379; Alabama cracked the 500 mark early in the fourth quarter. The Crimson Tide finished with 529 yards, converted 8 of 13 third downs, got five touchdowns in five trips to the red zone and became the first team since Stanford in 2009 to score at least 42 points against the Irish.
8. What Notre Dame said. From Manti Te'o: "I'm obviously disappointed, not necessarily all that we lost, but just we didn't represent our school, our team, our families the way that we could have," Te'o said. "So in that aspect it's just disappointing. But at the same time I'm proud to be a part of this team. What doesn't kill you will only make you stronger."
9. What Alabama said. From Nick Saban: "People talk about how the most difficult thing is to win your first championship," he said. "Really, the most difficult one to win is the next one, because there's always a feeling of entitlement."
10. The stats? They were a tad one-sided. AJC's Mark Bradley sums up the domination this way. "By 21 four seconds into the second quarter. At that moment, the Crimson Tide had outgained No. 1 Notre Dame 203 yards to 23 and had scored more points than the vaunted Irish defense had allowed in four quarters this season." Mobile-friendly stats recap | Expanded stats from the full web site.
