Wahoo Wire

He didn’t win that hardware in New York City for nothing, you know.   Sophomore running back Mark Ingram of Alabama played the role of Trojan Horse today as he decimated the Trojan defenses almost single handedly with 334 yards rushing and five touchdowns.

“He saw the holes really well today and he attacked the space that was given to him,” Coach Nick Saban said after the game.  “When he gets a head of steam going, he’s a tough guy to bring down.  We saw he was feeling it and just kept feeding him the ball.”

Saban’s words may be the understatement of the year.  Redshirt junior quarterback Greg McElroy only attempted six passes the entire game for a measly 84 yards; Ingram had more yards on one particular carry (an 88 yard rush that set up his third touchdown).  But McElroy seemed upbeat about the situation.

“It’s really nice some days to just take the snap, turn around, and give him the ball,” McElroy said.  “It makes my job easier and frees up our passing game later on…but we didn’t need that today.  Mark took care of it.”

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Alabama went down 3-0 after the first quarter and looked stagnant on the offensive side.  But then Ingram picked up the team and put the team on his back as the Tide turned and scored five touchdowns in the second quarter.

“They’re a very good football team.  We played them well for 15 minutes, but unfortunately, the game is 45 minutes longer than that,” Troy coach Larry Blakeney said.

Blakeney is no stranger to playing Alabama, having played at Auburn in the late 1960′s and said that while he had held out hope for his guys to pull an upset, he realizes that theirs was a very long shot.

“They’re the number one team in the country, undefeated, and they gave a whooping to the defending national champions a few weeks back; as I said, they’re a darn good team.”

“I’m proud of our guys for giving it their best shot, which is all I could have asked of them, and I hope they don’t hang their heads after this one.”

Ingram’s totals for the day set the Division I-A playoff record in every category but he was modest about his performance, saying they’ve still got a long way to go.

“It’s one game but we need to win four to accomplish our goal.  Back in the beginning of the season, we wanted to play for the title and winning the SEC was the first step for that, winning this game was the second, now we have to wait and see who the next step is going to be.”

Alabama will travel to Miami to play in the Orange Bowl in the next round of the tournament against the winner of tonight’s Oregon/Ohio State game.

Crimson Tide fans will be hoping that Ingram can play the role of Santa next week and bring them a trip to the Final Four for Christmas.

Results of Other Games:

#1 Alabama vs. #16 Troy

#8 Oregon vs. #9 Ohio State

#4 TCU vs. #13 Iowa

#5 Boise State vs. #12 West Virginia

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#2 Texas vs. #15 Central Michigan

#7 Georgia Tech vs. #10 LSU

#6 Florida vs. #11 Virginia Tech

#3 Cincinnati vs. #14 East Carolina