SEC Championship Game: Alabama 52, Florida 46

Saturday, December 19

Atlanta, GA

8 PM

Florida Gators

8-3 , 8-2

Alabama

11-0 , 10-0

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

Alabama

Florida

Chris Harry's Quick Slant (2019, TD marker)

Graphic: Scott MacCord/UAA Communications

SEC Championship Game: Alabama 52, Florida 46

Sunday, December 20, 2020 | Football, Chris Harry

Box Score

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

THE QUICK SLANT
No. 1 ALABAMA 52, No. 11 FLORIDA 46

WHAT HAPPENED: Tailback Najee Harris tallied 245 yards of all-purpose offense and scored five touchdowns, four in the first half, as the top-ranked Crimson Tide opened a fat lead at intermission and fended off a second-half Gators rally Saturday night to win the 2020 Southeastern Conference Championship Game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. Harris rushed for 179 yards and two TDs and caught another five passes for 67 yards and three scores. Bama quarterback Mac Jones threw for a SEC title game record 418 yards and five TDs, hitting superstar wide receiver DeVonta Smith for 15 catches, 184 yards and two scores. The Brown/Harris/Smith trio keyed a Tide offensive onslaught that gashed the Gators for 605 yards. UF was led again by fifth-year senior quarterback Kyle Trask, who passed for 408 yards and three touchdowns, plus rushed for a score, but his unit (462 yards, only 54 on the ground) just could not keep pace with the Tide. Alabama took the opening kickoff and went 70 yards in seven plays and needed less than three minutes to do it. It was a harbinger of things to come. The Tide had six first-half possessions and scored touchdowns on five of them. The lone outlier? It came with the game tied at 7-all when UF defensive back Trey Dean III intercepted Jones on the Tide's second possession. At the end of a 17-yard return, Jones fumbled the ball back on a vicious blindside hit from by wideout from Bama wideout John Metchie. On the very next snap, Jones found Smith running wide open on a crossing route for a 31-yard touchdown and 14-7 lead. Harris, who opened the scoring with an 8-yard touchdown run, caught TDs of 7, 23 and 17 yards from Jones, the last coming with six seconds to go before halftime, as the Tide went 78 yards in 54 seconds after the Gators seemingly grabbed some late-half momentum on a Trask TD run with 1:09 to go. The Tide led 35-17 at halftime, but Trask struck for a 50-yard touchdown pass to Trevon Grimes five plays into the third quarter and the UF defense came up with back-to-back stops -- the first on downs, the second forcing the Tide's first punt of the game with 5:22 remaining -- to further the comeback attempt. A 12-play, 80-yard drive was capped by a 3-yard scoring run by Nay'Quan Wright made it 35-31 with 18 seconds left in the third quarter. Harris, though, added his fifth touchdown on a 3-yard run, then on the ensuing series Trask was sacked by Will Anderson Jr., and fumbled the ball away. That set up a Tide field goal and 14-point lead with 9:53 remaining. The Gators, 17-point underdogs coming in, cut that margin in half when tailback Dameon Pierce scored on a 1-yard run with 6:33 left, leaving matters to the Florida defense. Alabama needed just four plays to go 66 yards, with Jones firing what seemed to be a 15-yard put-away TD to Smith with 4:59 left. Trask, though, hit tight end Kyle Pitts with a 22-yard score and added a two-point conversion run with 2:09 left to draw within six points. The Tide recovered the ensuing onsides kick and ran all but the final 16 seconds off the clock. Trask finished 26-for-40 of and ran his season's touchdown-pass total to 43. Senior wingback Kadarius Toney caught eight passes for 153 yards and a score, while Pitts hauled in seven balls for 129 yards and the TD.

Senior wingback **Kadarius Toney** hauls in a 51-yard touchdown strike from **Kyle Trask** in the first quarter of Saturday night's SEC Championship Game. (Photo: **Courtney Culbreath**/UAA Communications).

WHAT IT MEANS: The Gators were denied a ninth league title, while the Tide won their 28th. That's 15 more than the next-closest team (Georgia) in the SEC. Florida's second straight loss dropped it to 7-6 in all-time SEC title games, with a 4-6 mark against Bama, including 1-4 versus Coach Nick Saban, who will roll the Tide into the College Football Playoff next month.

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Harris came into the game with 27 receptions on the season and zero touchdown catches. He grabbed three TD passes in the first half alone. With 1,263 yards rushing and 27 total touchdowns on the season, Harris certainly deserves to join his buddies, Jones and Smith, in the Heisman conversation. In fact, don't be surprised if Jones, Smith and Harris give the Tide three players among the top Heisman vote-getters. That would be a first since Ohio State did it in 1973, when Penn State's John Cappelletti won the award.

STAGGERING STATISTIC: Of Alabama's 605 yards from scrimmage, Harris and Smith accounted for 420 of them. That's 69.4 percent of the offense, all of it keyed by Jones, of course.

UP NEXT: Florida (8-3) will learn of its bowl fate Sunday night, with speculation pointing to a return trip to Atlanta and date in the Peach Bowl or a second straight dispatch to the Orange Bowl in Miami. Less likely, but floating in the speculation sphere, is a possible spot in the Cotton Bowl, which would be a first in program history.