No. 2 Alabama clinches playoffs with 29-15 win over Florida

Alabama secured its spot in the College Football Playoff with a 29-15 victory over Florida on Saturday in the SEC championship game.

Jim McElwain can’t wait to get back to recruiting, and the Southeastern Conference championship game highlighted areas he needs to find help for his Florida team. “We weren’t playing in a stadium where Alabama played some of its home games”. Florida was 0-for-11 on third down conversions, averaged 0.7 yards per run – they were in danger of ending up with negative rushing yardage until late in the fourth quarter – and ran just 45 offensive plays.

Losing a game can make you do and say dumb things. But zero chance of that because Saban is ruthless (like all great coaches) and style points are important for a Tide team that wants to impress the nation and the College Football Playoff selection committee.

Certainly not Florida (10-2, No. 18 CFP), which will face the No. 2 Crimson Tide on Saturday in Atlanta.

Gators quarterback Treon Harris will try to lead the Gators to a big upset over Alabama and will need to protect the ball against a stingy Crimson Tide defense. Henry has rushed for 1,797 yards this season, and he’s in striking distance of Herschel Walker’s SEC record of 1,891 rushing yards in a season.

Saturday will be a new miserable experience for Couch Potato and all like him – capitalism at its worst has caused the networks to schedule three of the four games within 15 minutes of each other.

Quarterback Jake Coker passed for 204 yards and two touchdowns. He had just won his second national title with the Crimson Tide in 2011 and was enjoying his time in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Almost 20 years later, Alabama will look to repeat as SEC champs.

The SEC Championship Game is a bit like a family reunion for Alabama coach Nick Saban.

Florida’s defense and special teams kept it in the game early, thanks to an 85-yard punt return for a touchdown from freshman Antonio Callaway. The final in this one will be Alabama on top with a score of 31-17 sending them into the playoff, and sending Florida to a mediocre bowl game. “You know what, our family needs to make this decision and those guys are the leaders of our family”, responded the Florida coach after being pressed on why players would decide the fate of a player. The struggles caught up to them against the Florida State Seminoles who were a much better team than the three previous teams they faced.

All that being said Florida will fight till the end, but it probably won’t be enough as Alabama is clearly the better team. The Rebels jumped out to a 30-10 lead early, aided by a bobbled snap, near-sacked, into-double-coverage-and-off-a-defender’s-helmet pass play that went for an Ole Miss touchdown.

Alabama retakes lead, 12-7, after Derrick Henry’s 2-yard plunge. Saban, for what it’s worth, said he was proud of McElwain’s success as a head coach. Coker threw touchdown passes to Ar’Darius Stewart and Richard Mullaney.

The defense turned in quite a performance for coordinator Kirby Smart, who is expected to be named head coach at Georgia in the next few days.