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MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Alabama is once again championship bound. The No. 1 Crimson Tide 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.”
