Alabama vs. Washington, Peach Bowl Playoff semifinal 2016: Tide rolls into national title game

Perhaps you’ve seen Nick Saban’s latest bout of hollerin’. It’s pretty good and a worthy addition to the genre, with digressions and subplots stemming from a question about the team’s offensive coordinator hire, Brian Daboll from the Patriots.

He objected to the question’s premise, that Bama’s inability to hold onto a lead against Clemson in the National Championship drove him to hire a more ball-control-minded OC.

Alabama and Clemson are set to square off in the National Championship, and they’re set to do it again.

Last year’s classic saw the Tide take down the Tigers in Arizona, 45-40. This season, we’ll do it all again in Tampa, and the rematch is something that’s never been done before, not in the BCS era, the pre-BCS systems of the 1990s, or the older bowl system.

You are the Washington Huskies football team. It’s weird, I know. You’re now easily over 100 people, and that’s a hard thing to comprehend. Work with me.

You’re a whole football team, and you just got finished losing, 24-7, to Alabama.

As Alabama’s Bo Scarbrough broke Washington’s spirit with this 68-yard touchdown run, there’s only one thing I could think about.

Scarbrough’s Peach Bowl introduction looked a lot like that of a young Derrick Henry shredding Oklahoma in the 2013 season’s Sugar Bowl against Oklahoma.

When Major League Baseball installed a one-game wild card playoff before the actual playoffs, it brought out critics (yours truly included) who complained that a single-game elimination goes against the spirit of the sport. Everything in baseball involves multiple games, and building the randomness of a single game into the structure seemed unfair.

Everything in football is single-game. It is a logistical necessity, and it bakes an extra layer of chaos into the pie. There is no best-of-seven, and there is no coming back from a slow start or a 3-1 deficit.

For three minutes, Alabama was losing in the biggest game of the season.

(That didn’t last long.)

Alabama beat Washington, 24-7, in the Peach Bowl, and Clemson beat Ohio State, 31-0, in the Fiesta Bowl. The prize for each: advancing to the College Football Playoff National Championship. The best part about this year’s game is that we get a rematch of one of the most thrilling matchups of last season and the best title game in at least a decade: Alabama’s win over Clemson.

During the 2015 season, both teams arrived with different national perceptions. Alabama was playing for its fourth national title in seven years. Clemson was playing for its second-ever. The result? A 45-40, hard-fought Alabama victory that showed Clemson could hang with the best of the best and wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

In the closing seconds of Clemson’s unholy destruction of Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl Playoff semifinal, Tigers linebacker Ben Boulware had a question.

“Who won that game?” Boulware asked teammates, as ESPN’s microphones picked him up. “Who won Alabama-Washington? Who won the game?”

No. 1 Alabama sat on No. 4 Washington in the Peach Bowl, 24-7, advancing to the National Championship for the second time in the College Football Playoff’s three-year history and the fifth time since 2009.

No. 2 Clemson then annihilated No. 3 Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl, one of the worst losses in decades for the Buckeyes and perhaps the worst loss of Urban Meyer’s career.

Alabama whomped Washington in the Peach Bowl to reach the National Championship. Your thoughts, Alabama defensive end Jonathan Allen?

Allen was apparently down on Washington much earlier in the day.

It is college football tradition (and in other sports for that matter) to claim “we want Bama.”

Washington did it months ago.

Alabama beat No. 4 Washington 24-7 in the Peach Bowl to clinch a trip to the College Football Playoff National Championship. After the game, a very happy Rashaan Evans came running into the SEC Network’s broadcast desk behind Maria Taylor, Tim Tebow, and Marcus Spears that was on the field. Tragically, Evans slipped on God knows what and came crashing down mid-celebration.

Evans popped right back up and was laughing at himself afterwards. The best, probably most frightening aspect of this whole thing is when Spears says “You got another game!” Thankfully, Evans didn’t seem to be hurt after the fall. I can’t imagine how pissed Nick Saban would be if he were to get injured from that.

Alabama will play for college football’s national championship for the second year in a row The Crimson Tide beat Washington, 24-7 at a Peach Bowl semifinal in Atlanta on Saturday.

Alabama will face either Ohio State or Clemson for the title, depending on which team wins the Fiesta bowl later on Saturday in Arizona (7 p.m. ET, ESPN). The championship game is set for Jan. 9 in Tampa.

Alabama territory must be a nice place to be on a football field. It is probably an oasis of scoring opportunities and a land of milk and honey. Washington isn’t too familiar with it though, cuz the Huskies only got there two times in 14 tries.

On the second drive of the game, Washington scored on a 16-yard touchdown pass. Late in the game, they did it again on the garbage time drive with the game very much in hand.

Live box score? I recommend ESPN’s.

Alabama 24, Washington 7 (FINAL). Alabama is going for its fifth national title in eight years, the sixth of Nick Saban’s full career. The Tide held Jake Browning to only 3.9 yards per throw and the Huskies to only 1.5 yards per carry, with backup RB Bo Scarbrough running for 180 of Bama’s 327 yards. Total suffocation, after the early TD by the Huskies.

The second you forget how absolutely loaded Alabama’s roster is, there are games like the Peach Bowl that remind you. The key player in Alabama’s win over Washington was sophomore running back Bo Scarbrough, who had two touchdowns and 180 yards on the day. His second was a 68-yard touchdown that ultimately clinched Bama the victory over Washington.

Scarbrough may be a former five-star recruit, but he wasn’t very high in Alabama’s stat categories coming into this game. Prior to the Peach Bowl, Scarbrough, believe it or not, was Alabama’s fourth leading rusher, behind Damien Harris, quarterback Jalen Hurts and Joshua Jacobs.

2016 was the year of the booger. First, we had Jim Harbaugh doing something suspicious with his finger and his nostril. Now, we’ve got former USC head coach and 2017 Alabama offensive coordinator, Steve Sarkisian, at the Peach Bowl.

AND HE ATE IT. NOOOOOOO.

Alabama running back Bo Scarbrough is a powerful man. He’d already proven that, but he channeled Beast Mode Marshawn Lynch in the Peach Bowl against Washington.

Washington had Scarbrough stacked up at the line of scrimmage on a second-and-9 run, or at least that’s how it looked. Two Husky defenders had prime chances to bring him down early. But Scarbrough’s legs never stopped churning, and what was supposed be roughly no gain became a 68-yard, possibly game-sealing touchdown run.

Here’s Alabama getting away with some rule-breaking during the College Football Playoff and causing Washington to fumble, as spotted by ESPN:

In the third quarter of the Peach Bowl semifinal on Saturday, Washington was getting ready to snap the ball. Alabama linebacker Ryan Anderson clapped his hands, in such a way that Washington’s offensive linemen could be tricked into thinking Washington’s QB, not a Bama defender, was calling for the ball to be snapped.

No. 4 Washington is trying to beat No. 1 Alabama in the Peach Bowl Playoff semifinal. The Crimson Tide are a machine, and it takes a lot to beat them. This will help:

Washington went three-and-out on its first series, which isn’t the most auspicious way to start a game against Nick Saban. But UW punter Tristan Vizcaino launched a 64-yard punt, which bounced past Bama return man Trevon Diggs and forced Alabama to start inside its own 20 to start the game. It went in the books as a 65-yarder.

There are traditions integral to the sport of college football. There is Touchdown Jesus at Notre Dame and Chief Osceola planting the spear at Florida State. Army and Navy sing their alma maters after the annual rivalry game, and Miami runs out through the smoke.

But when College Football is played in Atlanta, we get the cow blimp.

Alabama’s defense scored 10 touchdowns this season, and nobody else in the FBS scored more than seven. Late in the second quarter of the Peach Bowl Playoff semifinal against Washington on Saturday, the Crimson Tide figured they’d make it 11.

Washington quarterback Jake Browning threw what he probably figured was a low-risk swing pass or check-down to running back Lavon Coleman. But the ball came out softly and flew a bit ahead of Coleman, and Tide linebacker Ryan Anderson was waiting for it. Anderson intercepted it and ran 26 yards for a touchdown. It would be 17-7, Alabama.

Bo Scarbrough scored the Peach Bowl’s first TD on this bruising 23-yard run.

Former Alabama running back Derrick Henry has a game plan for how the offense should be working.

Alabama freshman quarterback Jalen Hurts got flagged for intentional grounding on a second-quarter drive against Washington in Saturday’s Playoff semifinal.

The Huskies got pressure on Hurts on a first-and-10 at Washington’s 28-yard line, leading 10-7 and already in range to extend that lead with a field goal. But the grounding call on Hurts pushed Bama back to the UW 44, a 16-yard loss that eventually killed the drive and forced a punt. The play:

With Alabama facing a third-and-long in the second quarter of the Peach Bowl against Washington on Saturday, Tide quarterback Jalen Hurts rolled out and needed help.

Grad transfer receiver Gehrig Dieter snuck away from UW cornerback Kevin King, made himself available to Hurts, and squeezed his pass for a drive-extending first down.