shaun alexander

Previously: Part 1

First Quarter

Todd Howard, cornerback: I personally remember because I had played with that cast all season, toward the middle of the season after my wrist started to heal a little bit more they made me this molded cast that was not so big. I literally had the old school cast you up, get the thing wet, wrap your arm up [type] and once they made me this cast that was formed to my hand, it was more like rubber with some type of hard stuff underneath it. I was getting my cast cut off every week. I’d wear a cast to class and throughout practice and they’d cut it off at the end of the week and then I was able to wear this new cast. Once the game was over, they’d cast me back up and that was my weekly routine.

Got down there to Miami [and] I didn’t need to wear a hard cast anymore but they were still making me wear that cast they made for me and I remember the day before the game we were cutting off our ankle tape, all that stuff, our wrist tape. I saw it on the floor and I was like, Man, what would happen if this just magically disappeared before gametime? They wouldn’t have time to make me another one. I felt my wrist was alright at that point so I kind of slipped that into the garbage and then the next day, Oh, where’s your cast?! I was like ‘I don’t know, man. I haven’t seen it.’ Plus I got some new gloves, too, that I wanted to wear. It was weird just wearing one glove all season. I was like, man, we’re gonna be on national TV, we’re playing in the Orange Bowl, playing Alabama; I’m wearing two gloves. So the next day they just gave me a nice little wrist wrap and I remember going out first play and having to get off a block versus a receiver and my wrist was just on fire. I was like, ‘Yeah, probably shouldn’t have gotten rid of that cast.’

Alabama’s receivers lived up to their billing, but their offensive line was a surprise. Left tackle Chris Samuels, a first-team All-American and the 1999 recipient of the Outland Trophy, practiced only once the week prior to the game and did not play due to a nagging knee injury. The coaching staff decided to flip true freshman right tackle Dante Ellington to left tackle and start redshirt freshman Lannis Baxley, who had been serving as Chris Samuels’ backup, at right tackle.

Todd Howard’s wrist wasn’t the only thing tested on Alabama’s first offensive snap of the game. The Tide ran what appeared to be a bubble screen, which the secondary read and set to stop. Outside receiver Jason McAddley quickly broke inside and came free, but quarterback Andrew Zow put the ball a touch ahead of his wide-open receiver. A Shaun Alexander rush went for little gain on second down, then an actual bubble screen was blown up when Dhani Jones saw what was coming and closed seven yards in a split second to pull down A.C. Carter by the ankles. While the first play of the game hinted at a contest that would end with nearly 70 combined points scored, the rest of the first quarter did not.

Howard: It was a boxing match starting off. Just kind of going back and forth, and I remember the first carry or first couple carries Shaun Alexander had, I remember I was guarding a receiver and I took an angle and I was like, Yeah, I’m gonna make this tackle on Shaun Alexander and I took an angle that I typically take for a normal running back and I misjudged that thing by a landslide because he just took off and split the seam. I was like, Whoa. I don’t know how long the run was—I think it was his first touchdown—but I think it was like 40 or 50 yards and I remember that’s when I realized this speed’s a little bit different. For a guy that big to be able to move that fast, it was just...it was amazing. And we’d go on to see Shaun Alexander ended up being a pretty good running back in the NFL. Not such a bad career.

[After THE JUMP: Alexander continues to looks like Bowser but fast, though there's opportunity in through the air]