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Robinson Jr.'s strong ground game propels Alabama to theCFP Championship.
Brian Robinson Jr. scored 204 yards as Alabama trounced Georgia in the semifinals of the CFP. The time has been added.
9:30 PM.
Have no pity for Cincinnati. The big boys of college football were in the big room with the big boys of the Big East, and on a big afternoon in Big D they were there, in a College Football Playoff semifinal match up with the biggest program of them all.
The same fate that has befallen nearly all those who came before them, a roster of broken teams not from the upstart American Athletic Conference, was what happened to the fourth-ranked Cincinnati.
UC, don't feel bad. Alabama did the same to them.
There will be people who will try to use the loss of Cincy in the Cotton Bowl Classic as a platform to argue that there is no one but Power 5 teams. Cincinnati, which will be a Big 12 member in the near future, laid enough hard licks and came within a few inches on enough close plays, but anyone who watched the game without that preset attitude saw that.
"So many of those plays were very close," Cincinnati's Dublanko said. A couple of missed tackles cost us. I think we belong in this game.
If the current and future members of the selection committee were watching, they would see cause to be more open-minded about other outlier teams in the future. Who knows? They worked hard to keep outsiders outside before they included the Bearcats.
The quarterback said that they weren't carrying the flag for anyone but themselves. We wish it could've ended differently. I'm hoping there are other teams from any conference that can make it in the playoffs and show they can compete with the best of the best.
Alabama is the defending national champion and the best of the best. Cincinnati competed with the Tide as well as anyone has done before.
This was the sixth time that Alabama had opened the CFP as the top team and faced the second team. The Tide lost to eventual national champ Ohio State in the first CFP, but are now 6-1 in those games. Over Michigan State, Washington, Oklahoma and Notre Dame, the wins were by double digits. The fifth member of that college football blue-blooded but red-faced club was Cincinnati.
Alabama head coach Nick Saban came to the Cotton Bowl with a perfect record at AT&T Stadium, a 64-7 record against non-SEC opponents and a 74-8 record in non conference games. Cincinnati added one more win to the records on Friday.
Alabama took care of business when it came to Cincinnati, like it has done to many other teams in the playoffs.
There is nothing fun about one's bandwagon blowing out all four tires and going into a ditch. When you look around the ditch and see that your fellow residents include the likes of Ohio State, Georgia and Clemson, it won't sting as much.
The film of the biggest bowl appearance in the program's nearly 140-year history might hurt. They will see that Alabama's game plan for Cincy was to pound and punch early and often to wear down their opponent's thin roster by the second half.
The Tide played 10 run plays in the game. They ran it 47 times, nearly twice the number of pass attempts, and monster trucked their way to an Alabama bowl-record 301 yards rushing. By the second half, some wondered why the game plan didn't include Young. His lowest outputs of the season were 17 completions, 28 attempts and 181 yards. He threw two picks of the year. He threw three touchdown passes, but only three times did Alabama reach the end zone.
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Alabama implemented a hold offense, slowly suffocating out Cincinnati by moving the ball and allowing Will Anderson Jr. to take a highlighter pen to his "Why wasn't I on y'all's Heisman ballots?!" essay. The Tide's defense allowed six points and 218 yards, and 74 of them came on the ground.
Those who will argue that Cincinnati didn't belong in the four-team CFP field will point to the same thing the Tide do to other teams. They wear down a lot of big-box SEC opponents, as well as every single one of those previous CFP semifinal foes.
Cincinnati had an embarrassing night. Not a chance. The Michigan State team would not be affected by the loss of the Cincinnati team. Georgia might take it over its collapse against Alabama in the SEC championship game.
There are more chances for revenge against the Tide. The Spartans might. Let's hope that Cincinnati's Cotton Bowl showing earns them another chance, and if not for them, for the next party-crasher.
"I told them I don't want them to hang their heads," Fickell said. You start to wonder why when you get beat like that. We didn't point a finger and won't start to point a finger. Those guys are deserving of the very best.
They got it on Friday. The best team in the middle of the best era in the sport's history. No one worth their salt believes in moral victories. They believe that losses can be used to build on actual wins.
Ridder preached that the only thing they could do was learn. "These guys are going to watch the film and continue to get better and continue to grow and become a greater Cincinnati team in years to come."
College football would be better for it.
