College Football

Alabama, Georgia score blowouts; here are RJ Young's takeaways

Updated Jan. 3, 2022 6:40 p.m. ET

By RJ Young
FOX Sports College Football Writer

The rematch is on.

No. 1 Alabama and No. 3 Georgia will play for the 2021 national championship on Jan. 10 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis after the two SEC teams dominated their foes by a combined score of 61-17 in the College Football Playoff semifinals.

Nick Saban seeks his eighth national title since 2003 and seventh at Alabama since 2009. Kirby Smart is looking to win his first championship, and if he gets it, he will have earned his first win against his former boss.

Saban is 4-0 against Smart. But it’s not just the Georgia coach who is looking to exorcise a ghost. The Bulldogs have been haunted for years.

Georgia hasn't won a national title since 1980. Plus, the last time UGA played Bama in the national championship game, a backup quarterback named Tua Tagovailoa came off the bench, threw a pass to a little-known wide receiver named DeVonta Smith on second-and-26 with the game in the balance, and the Tide won the 2018 national title.

Add to all this the fact that Bama beat UGA just a month ago — the only team to do so this season — and Georgia's task becomes even more mentally arduous.

The Bulldogs, however, are talented enough to win.

To provide context to the title game, here are my takeaways from the CFP semifinals.

Cotton Bowl: Alabama smothers Cincinnati 27-6

Robinson Runs Wild

With six-plus minutes left in the first half, Tide running back Brian Robinson Jr. had already rushed for 102 yards on 14 carries.

He finished with an Alabama bowl-record 204 rush yards on 26 carries. Cincinnati only wished it could run the ball like that against the reigning national champs on Friday.

Robinson averaged 7.8 yards per rush in the most important game of his career. A fifth-year senior, he sat behind former Tide tailbacks Najee Harris and Damien Harris before earning his opportunity to be No. 1 on the depth chart, and he seized it.

Fighting through injury, Robinson has rushed for more than 1,400 yards this season, and now he is in position to win a third national title ring in four years.

RJ Young reacts to Alabama's victory | No. 1 Ranked Show

RJ Young reacts to Alabama's dominant win over Cincinnati in the college football semifinals: "Brian Robinson is the story of this game."

Bama ran the ball 10 consecutive times to start the game and leaned on a Bearcats team that was simply unequipped to meet the challenge.

Following the blowout of Cincinnati, the Bama program has scored more than twice as many points (224) than it has allowed (109) in CFP games.

Desmond Ridder couldn’t match Bryce Young on a bad day for Young

Bama’s defense batted down four of Bearcats QB Ridder's passes, and the Tide offense put itself in several third-and-long situations, despite Robinson’s record game on the ground.

It has to be a different kind of demoralizing when you can't block up a Hail Mary, which the Cincinnati offensive line failed to do just before halftime. Ridder played a horrible first half, going 8-for-17 for 59 pass yards. He was sacked three times and was under constant pressure.

Cincinnati's 76 total yards were the fewest in the first half by any team in a CFP game. The Bearcats finished with just 218 yards — only 14 more than Robinson rushed for.

As bad as Ridder looked, Alabama's defensive line was that good. DJ Dale, Will Anderson and Phil Mathis tore the Cincinnati offensive line apart.

The last time I saw Alabama’s defense play like this in a semifinal, Quinnen Williams rag-dolled Oklahoma's offensive line in the Orange Bowl two years ago. The difference is that OU QB Kyler Murray still looked like a first-round pick in that game. Murray finished with 308 pass yards and 109 rush yards.

Ridder did not look or play like a first-round selection against the best team he has faced in his career, and that will be a mark against him as he prepares for the NFL Draft. Ridder won 44 games as Cincinnati's starting quarterback, which trails only Boise State's Kellen Moore (50 wins, 2008-11) and Texas' Colt McCoy (45 wins, 2006-09).

Then again, wins are not a QB stat.

Meanwhile, Young got the help from his running game and defense that Ridder did not. The Heisman winner finished 17-for-28 for 181 pass yards with three TDs and a pick.

Those aren't great numbers, but he made a huge play in the first half. After seeing that Cincinnati matched Coby Bryant, the Thorpe Award winner, against Tide No. 1 receiver Jameson Williams, Bama matched a five-star in Ja’Corey Brooks with a three-star in Arquon Bush in man-to-man and said, "We’re going deep."

Young hit Brooks for a 44-yard touchdown — and a 17-3 Bama lead.

Alabama's playcalling left openings Cincinnati couldn't exploit

As dominant as the performance was for the Tide, offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien made some curious playcalling decisions. With an offensive line and a tailback gashing the Bearcats' three-man front, O’Brien still dialed up more pass attempts for Young than run plays for Robinson.

While balance in offensive playcalling might be important for O’Brien, adjusting to how his offense is playing, and avoiding the strength of the opposing defense, is paramount.

It worked this time, but it might not work in the national championship game if Georgia shows an ability to score.

Stars matter

The Alabama front was the clearest indication of the talent gap between the two teams. As I wrote earlier this week, Alabama has 74 blue-chip recruits on its roster. Cincinnati has seven. Stars matter.

However, Power 5 programs have gotten blown out in the CFP semis, too. Oklahoma and Notre Dame, anyone? If OU belonged in 2019 and ND belonged in 2020, 13-0 Cincinnati belonged in the CFP in 2021. Call it both ways is what I'm saying.

Defensively, the star chasm was exploited, as the defensive line sacked Ridder six times. Although Cincinnati's defense played better against Bama, particularly in the secondary, than Georgia’s defense did in the SEC title game, the Bearcats' offense couldn’t score more than six points.

Cincinnati's defense deserved a better offense

The score was 7-3 at the end of the first quarter. For some perspective, after one quarter two years ago, Oklahoma was down 21-7 against LSU.

At one point in the first half, Alabama was in third-and-14 or longer three times on two drives. You’re not likely to convert a ton of those, but the Bearcats also weren't likely to get a bunch more.

Ultimately, Cincinnati's offense couldn’t turn those stops into TDs.

The Alabama advantage was just 17-3 at halftime, but it felt like with each Bearcat drive in the second half, the score grew. Cincinnati couldn’t move the ball, could barely run it at all, and time kept ticking with each Robinson rush.

Many thought this game would be a blowout. Perhaps that says less about our expectations for Alabama than it does about how little we respect Cincinnati. But the performance by Nick Saban's squad was still dominant.

Orange Bowl: Georgia mauls Michigan 34-11

Dawgs' defense returned to form

The UGA defense had four sacks and three takeaways (in a row) against a Michigan offense that never found its way.

Wolverine quarterbacks Cade McNamara and J.J. McCarthy completed just 18 of 36 pass attempts for 237 yards with one TD (McCarthy) and two picks (McNamara).

This Dawgs' defense looked like the one we’d seen in every game but the 41-24 SEC title game loss to Alabama. Now Georgia has earned a chance to show that game was an aberration.

UGA DC Dan Lanning outcoached UM OC Josh Gattis

Wolverine running back Hassan Haskins was held to just 39 rush yards on nine carries. The rushing attack behind the Joe Moore Award-winning offensive line managed just 88 yards against a UGA defense led by lame-duck coordinator Dan Lanning, Oregon's new head coach.

Lanning’s counterpart, UM offensive coordinator Josh Gattis, won the Broyles Award, given to the nation’s top assistant. Perhaps Lanning noticed.

Either way, he has set himself up to walk into Eugene with another national championship ring. He, like Smart, was on Saban’s staff when the Tide won the 2015 national title.

First round-pick Stetson Bennett?

Bennett has outplayed nearly every other draft-eligible QB this season. And now his play against the vaunted Michigan defense is on tape.

He completed 21 of 31 passes for 310 pass yards with three TDs against a top-10 scoring defense. Bennett has gone from 2017 walk-on to one of the five best draft-eligible quarterbacks this season.

The last time he played against Alabama, he set career highs for completions, attempts and pass yards. That means that the two best teams he has played this season are also two of his best games on film.

Heading into the season, few thought Bennett was a better QB than Ridder. Now, it’s nearly inarguable.

RJ Young on Georgia's dominant victory over Michigan

RJ Young says Stetson Bennett deserves respect after the Georgia QB threw for 310 yards and three touchdowns in the blowout win over Michigan.

It’s James Cook's kitchen

Dalvin Cook’s younger brother recorded 109 receiving yards and 141 total yards with a TD.

He proved that he’s one of the most versatile players in the sport, and he will be used to create favorable matchups against Bama linebackers and safeties in the national title game like he was against Michigan’s defense.

In fact, Cook could prove the pivotal piece in this fifth game of chess between Saban and Smart.

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports and the host of the podcast "The No. 1 Ranked Show with RJ Young." Follow him on Twitter at @RJ_Young, and subscribe to "The RJ Young Show" on YouTube. He is not on a StepMill.