By Tony Tsoukalas
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Alabama is once again championship bound. The No. 1 Crimson punched its ticked to a fourth straight national championship game appearance Saturday night as it outlasted No. 4 Oklahoma 45-34 in the Orange Bowl. Alabama will now move on to face No. 2 Clemson for the national title on Jan. 7 in Santa Clara, Calif.
Here are five things we learned from Saturday night’s victory over the Sooners.
Williams finally gets his say on Murray
Quinnen Williams caught himself just in time. When asked last week about Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray, the Alabama defensive lineman appeared to be on the verge of providing a bulletin-board response before quickly pulling in the reigns.
"I feel like Kyler Murray is not what everybody,” Williams started before awkwardly clearing his throat. “Nah, I'm good."
Now that Oklahoma’s out of the way, Williams said he’s now allowed to finish his thoughts from last week. So where were we? Kyler Murray is…
“Great,” Williams interjected with a laugh. “Super fast, great.”
Williams’ initial response caught fire on social media as most figured the defensive lineman saw flashes of an angry Nick Saban in his mind mid-sentence. The clip was retweeted thousands of times, with some even adding angry pictures of the Alabama head coach. Following the game, Williams explained what was truly going through his head.
“We’ve been trained, we’ve been coached by Coach Saban not to speak on our opinions and not to speak about our personal feelings. Speak about the game and facts and all fact,” he said.. “I feel like I was going into an opinion, and I had to cut myself off.”
Still, the reaction brought about plenty of laughs inside of Alabama’s locker room leading into the game.
“It blew up, so we laughed about it every day,” Williams said. “It was funny when everybody started putting stuff with it and putting in Coach Saban’s face. Coach Saban said afterward he got a laugh about it, too.”
Williams got his first in-game look of Murray on Saturday. While the defensive lineman got a few good licks in, the Heisman quarterback held his own against Alabama. Murray finished the night completing 19 of 37 passes for 308 yards and two touchdowns while adding 109 yards and a score on the ground.
“In person, he’s really fast,” Williams said. “He’s inside-the-park home run fast. He’s really fast, though, really great quarterback. Tough, he’s very tough. He did the job well. He’s a leader and ran their offense, got them together, got them settled down. The things I’ve seen on the field from him in general, he’s a really good quarterback.”
Saban provides update on Christian Miller
The status is uncertain for one of Alabama’s permanent team captains. Linebacker Christian Miller suffered what appears to be a hamstring injury during the first drive of the third quarter. After being tended to by trainers, he was helped off the field and spent a brief stint in the medical tent. From there, he was helped to Alabama’s locker room. Following the game, Miller was seen moving gingerly on crutches.
“I think that Christian Miller may be the guy that will be the most difficult,” Saban said. “I think everybody else will be fine. So he's really the only guy that may have an issue. We don't know the extent of his hamstring injury to this point, but when they do an MRI we'll find out. But he seemed to be the most serious injury that we had.”
Miller tallied a sack before leaving the game. Through 14 games, he is second on the team with 8.5 sacks.
Saban talks headset toss
As Alabama continued to pile up penalties its head coach began to boil on the sideline. The Crimson Tide was flagged nine times for 86 yards against Oklahoma. Nothing upset Saban more than a string of three pre-snap penalties over four consecutive plays while Alabama was in the red zone right before the half. One of those negated a 19-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, while the final one came on fourth-and-1, causing Alabama to settle for a 38-yard field goal.
That’s when Saban lost it.
Caught in a fit of rage, Saban was filmed tearing off his headset and slamming it on the ground. Fortunately for the Crimson Tide, the mental mistakes didn’t make too much off a difference in the outcome of the game. Following the game, Saban was in a much better mood tossing oranges to fans while celebrating his team’s victory.
“It was more fun throwing the oranges,” Saban said. “I can tell you a story about that. My son was young and playing like junior high basketball. He got mad in a game, and I gave him a lecture, he and Kristen both, about not showing their emotions, keeping their cool, and their response to me was, and how many headsets have you broken?”
Tagovailoa, Murray share healthy respect for one another
It turns out there wasn’t really a bad choice. While Tagovailoa bested Heisman winner Murray both finalists shined on the night. Tagovailoa threw more touchdowns than incompletions, completing 24 of 27 passes for 318 yards and four scores. Murray’s stat line wasn’t as flawless, but he kept Oklahoma in the game late completing 19 of 37 passes for 308 yards and two touchdowns with 109 yards and another score on the ground.
While social media was busy debating the results of this year’s Heisman voting after the game, the two star quarterbacks don’t share the same rivalry. Following the final whistle, Murray and Tagovailoa embraced on the field before sharing a few words of respect between one another.
“Me and Kyler just told each other, great game,” Tagovailoa said. “He said I love you, I told him I love him, too. Aside from that, I just told him, great season. He had a great season. He told me I had a great game, and go win it all. But when you look at it, we're both competitors.
“I think he's done a tremendous job with running the offense. Lincoln Riley has done a tremendous job, as well. I just think overall, at the end of the day, we're both competitors, and we're going to do whatever we can to help our team become successful.”
Bulovas breaks the extra point record
There was a brief moment of surprise as Joseph Bulovas was informed he had just made Alabama history. The redshirt freshman made all six of his extra point attempts against Oklahoma, setting the Crimson Tide’s single-season record in the process. The six made tries give Bulovas 74 on the season, passing Jeremy Shelley’s previous record of 69 set in 2012.
“I did? I guess that’s cool,” Bulovas said after being notified of the achievement inside of Alabama’s locker room. “I’d rather be the all-time scorer or have something cooler than, ‘Oh I broke the extra-point record. No, that’s all to our offense. I’m expected to make those, so that’s just all due to them.”
Extra points have been far from automatic for Alabama this season. Through 14 games, Bulovas has missed five, while graduate transfer Austin Jones has missed three. Still, Bulovas put in a perfect performance Saturday night and even added a 38-yard field goal before the half to half to give Alabama a 31-10 lead and break a run of 10 unanswered points by Oklahoma.
“It’s always big when you can get points before the half. I guess it just lifts the whole team up no matter what the situation is. We practice our two-minute drill all the time, and it was no different.”
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Alabama is once again championship bound. The No. 1 Crimson punched its ticked to a fourth straight national championship game appearance Saturday night as it outlasted No. 4 Oklahoma 45-34 in the Orange Bowl. Alabama will now move on to face No. 2 Clemson for the national title on Jan. 7 in Santa Clara, Calif.
Here are five things we learned from Saturday night’s victory over the Sooners.
Williams finally gets his say on Murray
Quinnen Williams caught himself just in time. When asked last week about Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray, the Alabama defensive lineman appeared to be on the verge of providing a bulletin-board response before quickly pulling in the reigns.
"I feel like Kyler Murray is not what everybody,” Williams started before awkwardly clearing his throat. “Nah, I'm good."
Now that Oklahoma’s out of the way, Williams said he’s now allowed to finish his thoughts from last week. So where were we? Kyler Murray is…
“Great,” Williams interjected with a laugh. “Super fast, great.”
Williams’ initial response caught fire on social media as most figured the defensive lineman saw flashes of an angry Nick Saban in his mind mid-sentence. The clip was retweeted thousands of times, with some even adding angry pictures of the Alabama head coach. Following the game, Williams explained what was truly going through his head.
“We’ve been trained, we’ve been coached by Coach Saban not to speak on our opinions and not to speak about our personal feelings. Speak about the game and facts and all fact,” he said.. “I feel like I was going into an opinion, and I had to cut myself off.”
Still, the reaction brought about plenty of laughs inside of Alabama’s locker room leading into the game.
“It blew up, so we laughed about it every day,” Williams said. “It was funny when everybody started putting stuff with it and putting in Coach Saban’s face. Coach Saban said afterward he got a laugh about it, too.”
Williams got his first in-game look of Murray on Saturday. While the defensive lineman got a few good licks in, the Heisman quarterback held his own against Alabama. Murray finished the night completing 19 of 37 passes for 308 yards and two touchdowns while adding 109 yards and a score on the ground.
“In person, he’s really fast,” Williams said. “He’s inside-the-park home run fast. He’s really fast, though, really great quarterback. Tough, he’s very tough. He did the job well. He’s a leader and ran their offense, got them together, got them settled down. The things I’ve seen on the field from him in general, he’s a really good quarterback.”
Saban provides update on Christian Miller
The status is uncertain for one of Alabama’s permanent team captains. Linebacker Christian Miller suffered what appears to be a hamstring injury during the first drive of the third quarter. After being tended to by trainers, he was helped off the field and spent a brief stint in the medical tent. From there, he was helped to Alabama’s locker room. Following the game, Miller was seen moving gingerly on crutches.
“I think that Christian Miller may be the guy that will be the most difficult,” Saban said. “I think everybody else will be fine. So he's really the only guy that may have an issue. We don't know the extent of his hamstring injury to this point, but when they do an MRI we'll find out. But he seemed to be the most serious injury that we had.”
Miller tallied a sack before leaving the game. Through 14 games, he is second on the team with 8.5 sacks.
Saban talks headset toss
As Alabama continued to pile up penalties its head coach began to boil on the sideline. The Crimson Tide was flagged nine times for 86 yards against Oklahoma. Nothing upset Saban more than a string of three pre-snap penalties over four consecutive plays while Alabama was in the red zone right before the half. One of those negated a 19-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, while the final one came on fourth-and-1, causing Alabama to settle for a 38-yard field goal.
That’s when Saban lost it.
Caught in a fit of rage, Saban was filmed tearing off his headset and slamming it on the ground. Fortunately for the Crimson Tide, the mental mistakes didn’t make too much off a difference in the outcome of the game. Following the game, Saban was in a much better mood tossing oranges to fans while celebrating his team’s victory.
“It was more fun throwing the oranges,” Saban said. “I can tell you a story about that. My son was young and playing like junior high basketball. He got mad in a game, and I gave him a lecture, he and Kristen both, about not showing their emotions, keeping their cool, and their response to me was, and how many headsets have you broken?”
Tagovailoa, Murray share healthy respect for one another
It turns out there wasn’t really a bad choice. While Tagovailoa bested Heisman winner Murray both finalists shined on the night. Tagovailoa threw more touchdowns than incompletions, completing 24 of 27 passes for 318 yards and four scores. Murray’s stat line wasn’t as flawless, but he kept Oklahoma in the game late completing 19 of 37 passes for 308 yards and two touchdowns with 109 yards and another score on the ground.
While social media was busy debating the results of this year’s Heisman voting after the game, the two star quarterbacks don’t share the same rivalry. Following the final whistle, Murray and Tagovailoa embraced on the field before sharing a few words of respect between one another.
“Me and Kyler just told each other, great game,” Tagovailoa said. “He said I love you, I told him I love him, too. Aside from that, I just told him, great season. He had a great season. He told me I had a great game, and go win it all. But when you look at it, we're both competitors.
“I think he's done a tremendous job with running the offense. Lincoln Riley has done a tremendous job, as well. I just think overall, at the end of the day, we're both competitors, and we're going to do whatever we can to help our team become successful.”
Bulovas breaks the extra point record
There was a brief moment of surprise as Joseph Bulovas was informed he had just made Alabama history. The redshirt freshman made all six of his extra point attempts against Oklahoma, setting the Crimson Tide’s single-season record in the process. The six made tries give Bulovas 74 on the season, passing Jeremy Shelley’s previous record of 69 set in 2012.
“I did? I guess that’s cool,” Bulovas said after being notified of the achievement inside of Alabama’s locker room. “I’d rather be the all-time scorer or have something cooler than, ‘Oh I broke the extra-point record. No, that’s all to our offense. I’m expected to make those, so that’s just all due to them.”
Extra points have been far from automatic for Alabama this season. Through 14 games, Bulovas has missed five, while graduate transfer Austin Jones has missed three. Still, Bulovas put in a perfect performance Saturday night and even added a 38-yard field goal before the half to half to give Alabama a 31-10 lead and break a run of 10 unanswered points by Oklahoma.
“It’s always big when you can get points before the half. I guess it just lifts the whole team up no matter what the situation is. We practice our two-minute drill all the time, and it was no different.”
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