Alabama Crimson Tide football quarterback Blake Sims on the cover of Sports Illustrated, 2014 College Football Playoff preview / Sports Illustrated
It's hard to believe it was 10 years ago that the first four-team College Football Playoff was set to begin play, with top-seeded Alabama set to square off against Ohio State, and Oregon playing Florida State. It was on this day in 2014 that Sports Illustrated announced that it was publishing four special playoff editions, with four different covers, one for each team to preview the semifinals. Starting quarterback Blake Sims represented the Crimson Tide on the double-issue cover dated Dec. 29, under the words "The Mayhem Begins."
Alabama didn't play especially well against Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl semifinal. Even though it jumped out to a 20-6 lead, Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban didn't like the way the game was progressing, especially defensively against the Buckeyes' offense with quarterback Cardale Jones (who had made just his second career start after being behind Braxton Miller and J. T. Barrett) , and running back Ezekial Elliot.
"We never really stopped them,†Saban said. “We got two turnovers and two red-zone stops, but I didn’t like the feel of the game then. We didn’t control the game the way we usually do.â€
He was right as the Buckeyes subsequently scored 28 unanswered points and ended up winning 42-35. Ohio State rolled up 537 yards of offense against the nation's top-rated defense, and Elliott ran for a Sugar Bowl record 230 rushing yards and two touchdowns.
Saban later admitted that the Crimson Tide had approached the game not too differently from a bowl, but he quickly learned from it. Alabama didn't lose another CFP semifinal until his final game at the end of the 2023 season, 27-20 in overtime to Michigan in the Rose Bowl, winning six straight times to advance to the national championship game.
Sims kept playing football until 2022, including with the CFL, with two NFL practice squads, and even the Birmingham Iron. He's currently the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Mt. Bethel Christian Academy in Marietta, Ga.
December 23, 1926: Alabama's All-Southern conference center Gordon "Sherlock" Holmes was striken with an appendicitis in El Paso, Tex., while the team was en route to Pasadena for the Rose Bowl showdown with Stanford. Sophomore Babe Pearce was tabbed to fill in for Holmes, who told doctors he was going to catch the next train to Pasadena to be with the Crimson Tide.
December 23, 1991: Trevor Releford was born in Kansas City, Mo.