How Alabama dictated the 1993 Sugar Bowl vs. Miami in the first half

With at least another month until college football finally kicks off again, these summer months provide an opportunity to stop for a second and look back at some of the sport’s great moments before more are made this fall.

Over on the On3 YouTube channel, Andy Staples hopped in a time machine to return to one of the more consequential championship games of the 20th century, in fact, the very first official one, in 1993. Undefeated Alabama met up with undefeated and reigning national champs Miami in the first-ever national championship game under the Bowl Coalition – which was founded to select a title game matchup each season, rather than having the Associated Press just vote on a champion at the end of the year.

Yes, at one point in time the AP voters who are ridiculed for their weekly rankings nowadays were once the official body that hand-picked the national champions. In 1992-93, things changed and the Bowl Coalition was formed with the goal of matching up the two best teams in a title game to truly decide the champion.

But in ’93, in the first modern title game, it was Alabama who jumped on top early and never relented as they nudged Miami off the pedestal to claim their first national title in 14 seasons. On Friday’s On3 YouTube show, Andy Staples brought on Tim Watts of BamaOnLine to discuss the landmark game and why the Crimson Tide jumped out to the early lead and never relented.

“The thing that kind of gave away what was about to happen early on is Miami starts running these timing routes, they start running these underneath little screens, things to let Gino Torretta complete passes,” commented Staples.

“Because he could not take a snap, drop back, go through his progressions, and throw the ball because there was not time. He was getting confused because the pass rush was so ferocious — and then ‘Bama was doing stuff in the secondary to confuse him.”

Torretta, a former Heisman Trophy winner, was no doubt a terrific quarterback, but Watts notes he just couldn’t find space to breathe against that Alabama pass rush.

“I do think when Torretta had time, he could pick you apart,” he said. “You can’t guard those wide receivers four, five, six seconds. You know, if you’re sitting back there, counting ‘one Mississippi’ to five, then you’re gonna find a guy that’s open.

“He just didn’t have that option. He was literally having to guess ‘Is this guy open, he’s been open since the day I met him,’ and Alabama did a good job making sure that wasn’t the case.”

The signs of an Alabama onslaught were obvious from the jump, and Miami just couldn’t catch a breath.

“They were out of timeouts in the first half with nine minutes and 20 seconds to go,” remarked Staples. “Out of timeouts!”

Watts then added: “If you could have used all six timeouts in the first half, Miami would have had none at halftime. It was that confusing. Again, I think that made a big difference.”

Miami was king of college football the year prior, but were simply no match for the Crimson Tide in the 1993 Sugar Bowl.