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The Alabama football team plays a game on December 27, 2021.
Kevin C. Cox is a photographer.
Despite playing in the College Football Playoff for the seventh time in eight years, the Alabama football team still has a chip on its shoulder.
The top-ranked Alabama will face fourth-seeded Cincinnati in the Cotton Bowl semifinals. Will Anderson Jr. told reporters that his team is the favorite in the game.
Dean Straka is on the phone.
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Will Anderson is a LB for Alabama.
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I feel like we're the outsiders in this game. We've been disrespected all year.
Anderson said they love it. It just makes us want to do more. We know what kind of team we have.
Alabama isn't seen as the favorite by the public. The Tide are a 13.5-point favorite. The Bearcats are not using the underdog label as motivation.
"Not worried about the kind of focus being on us," Dylan O'Quinn said. Everyone puts their pants on the same way, even though we've heard a lot about David versus Goliath. Everybody plays football, so we want to be ourselves.
Cincinnati is the first Group of Five team to make the playoffs. Since the end of the season, the Bearcats have won 23 of their last 24 games. Georgia defeated them on a last-second field goal in the Peach Bowl to end the 2020 season.
Alabama lost to Texas A&M, but has won its last seven games.
