Tide Turns In Dominating Defensive Effort To Slam Tigers

At 10:32 p.m. Monday night, Alabama’s defense rested.

But for the three hours and two minutes before that, the Crimson Tide turned in perhaps the most dominant defensive performance in bowl history in a 21-0 victory over LSU in the Allstate BCS National Championship Monday night in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.

Just how dominant was Alabama’s defense? It was the first time in more than two years – bowl game or otherwise – that a Football Bowl Subdivision team failed to finish a single drive in opposition territory.

That was New Mexico State against Ohio State.

This was for all the insurance – or at least Brent Musburger would have said something like that had LSU-Alabama II played out anything like LSU-Alabama I.

Alabama held LSU to 92 total yards, the second-fewest yards ever allowed in a BCS bowl. The Tide’s effort fell 10 yards short of the BCS title game record of 82 allowed by Florida against Ohio State five years ago, but the Buckeyes put up 14 points on the Gators.

The Tigers had the football 11 times, and those drives ended with nine punts, one turnover and one failed fourth down. In other words, on third and fourth down, Alabama’s defense finished.

“That was kind of the message before the game,” said Alabama coach Nick Saban, who claimed his third national title – two at Alabama and one at LSU. “We wanted to finish.

“There was a question: How bad do you want to finish? You do it one play at a time. Regardless of what happens in the game – and we certainly didn’t play a perfect game – the guys kept playing.”

While the headlines will talk of Alabama’s defensive dominance, the offense finished many more drives this time around than 65 days ago in Tuscaloosa.

Jeremy Shelley tied a bowl game record with five field goals, and after 115-plus minutes of touchdown-free football between these two teams, Trent Richardson put the exclamation point on Alabama’s 14th national title with a 34-yard touchdown run with 4:36 remaining.

Quarterback A.J. McCarron completed 23 of 34 passes for 234 yards, becoming the first sophomore quarterback in the BCS era to win a national title.

It was LSU’s defensive system that put the game in McCarron’s hands.

“It wasn’t about A.J.,” Saban said. “They’ve got a very good defensive front and they play a lot of eight-man fronts on first down. We felt like in the first game we should have thrown it more on first down. It was about what we needed to do to win the game.”

But when this game is talked about years from now, it will come back to a defensive effort that produced four sacks of LSU quarterback Jordan Jefferson.

“It was the pass rush that probably saved us,” Saban said. “Our players adapted and did a good job.”

“We wanted to go out and execute our game plan,” said Alabama linebacker and defensive MVP Courtney Upshaw. “Keep him contained, make him a passer. The coaches (said) … to do our job and not try to do too much.”

LSU fans wanted to see Les Miles give Jarrett Lee another shot behind center, but in reality, with the way the Tide defense was playing, it might have been hard for anyone to get anything going offensively.

“We did consider Jarrett Lee,” Miles said. “I really felt like – even though we owe Jarrett Lee a lot – it would be unfair to him with the pass rush he would sustain. Jefferson could avoid the pass rush. That was my call.”

Miles shouldered the blame for his team’s performance.

“I told my team I did not see it coming, and that’s my fault,” he said. “I wish I could have done something to help. My players worked their tails off. To them, I owe a lot. We have to be better.”

The next chance to be better against Alabama comes in a little less than 10 months, when Saban and the Tide come to Tiger Stadium – the fourth straight year that the defending national champion will travel to Baton Rouge.

“We will look forward to taking the field against that team again,” Miles said. “We understand they won the last round. We’ll respond.”