PASADENA, Calif. – You couldn’t hear Colt McCoy’s right shoulder pop Thursday night, but you knew what people would be saying next. Poor Texas.
It’s certainly appropriate to feel sorry for McCoy and the Longhorns, but direct a little sympathy the Crimson Tide’s way. They are one of the best BCS champions ever, and all most people will talk about is how the crown was handed to them.
Yes, they almost threw up on their gift-wrapped win. Freshman quarterback Garrett Gilbert deserves as big a bonus as Mack Brown. And Texas absolutely, positively, unquestionably suffered without McCoy.
The point is, so did Alabama.
You spend a month getting psyched to play the real McCoy, and then you suddenly have to face Gilbert Gottfried?
Okay, that was a cheap shot.
“Garrett Gilbert stepped in and played as good as he could play,” McCoy said, barely.
But how much of that was a freshman growing up before our eyes, and how much of it was Alabama just trying to get the game over with?
After Marcell Dareus returned Gilbert’s shovel pass 28 yards for a touchdown, the party was on. Problem was, there was still three seconds to play in the first half. No matter what their coach yelled at halftime, his players knew the score.
“It was like we won the game at halftime,” Nick Saban said.
That darned Dareus. He started the whole problem when he crashed into McCoy’s back on the Longhorns’ fifth offensive play. Suddenly the biggest night of the college football season felt like …
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