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It was throwback Alabama. It was smash mouth football. It was nonstop pressure. It was a flashback to how Nick Saban built this dynastic program.
Forget spreading the field and lighting up the scoreboard. This is how Alabama used to win national championships, and it was good enough to get them back to the final game of the season.
The Crimson Tide beat up previously undefeated Cincinnati up front. They ran through the Bearcats. They abused them in the trenches. They flexed their five-star muscles in a one-sided 27-6 Cotton Bowl victory at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Cinderella didn’t get to stay at the dance very long. The first Group of Five school to reach the playoff was outclassed by the defending national champions that seem intent on repeating. The last team to achieve that feat was, yes, you guessed it, Alabama in 2011-12.
Without star wideout John Metchie III (torn ACL) and facing one of the premier secondaries in the country, Alabama turned senior running Brian Robinson Jr. loose against Cincinnati’s smallish front seven. He torched the Bearcats for a career-best 204 yards on 26 carries and an Alabama bowl record, making it a light day for quarterback Bryce Young.
Alabama’s stifling defense did the rest. It had its way with Cincinnati and star quarterback Desmond Ridder, sacking him six times, frequently pressuring him and frustrating the Bearcats, who managed just three plays of 10 or more yards over the first three quarters and failed to score a touchdown for the first time in 34 games. Their 76 first half yards were the fewest in the College Football Playoff’s eighth-year history.
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