DeVonta Smith has tunnel vision for the Alabama Crimson Tide. No. 1 Alabama prepares to take on No. 4 Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff Semifinals on Jan. 1.
Smith might very well be the first wide receiver to win the Heisman trophy since Desmond Howard but he’s only focused on the Fighting Irish. Notre Dame might want to figure out a way to stop him if they have a chance to win.
Speaking on the Paul Finebaum show, Smith outlined his excitement to play Notre Dame and have a chance to get back to the national championship.
“I was very excited,” Smith said on the Paul Finebaum show. “I’m only guaranteed one more game, so gotta make the best of it to get to play two more games. Just really buying into everything and going out there every day, doing what we have to do to continue our journey.”
Alabama is 11-0 on the year and rolling through pretty much everybody. Smith said he wouldn’t think about the season as a whole until well into the future.
“We won’t think about that until we’ve completed everything we’ve worked for and mapped out,” Smith said.
On the season, Smith made his case to be a high first round draft pick in April 2021. In 11 games, Smith has 98 catches, 1,511 yards, 17 touchdowns and 15.4 yards per catch.
In his career, Smith has 216 catches, 3,620 yards, 40 touchdowns and 16.8 yards per catch. One of those touchdowns was the game winning touchdown in Alabama’s national championship victory over Georgia.
Former Florida wide receiver and current SEC analyst Chris Doering thinks Alabama can’t be beat at this rate. After watching the SEC Championship, Doering basically thinks Alabama is a shoe in for a national title.
He even went as far to say another team has to be perfect in order to beat Alabama.
“I don’t know that anybody has the combination of offense and defense to be able to do it,” Doering said on SEC Football Final. “I thought Notre Dame’s defense was legit. They got exposed as being fraudulent today. You look at what Ohio State does in that small sample size, I don’t think that they have enough offense. Justin Fields has not been great this season, he’s turned the football over too much. Texas A&M is probably the team that’s most complete and they got beat by 28 early in the season.
“You have to be perfect if you’re gonna beat Alabama. There were times Florida’s defense in the third quarter got a couple stops. They were times when the offense looked really good, but there’s those other times when you have empty possessions, you don’t take advantage of those opportunities. You get a turnover and you fumble it right back to them. You get some third down stops and you get penalties that give Alabama another opportunity. You have to be perfect if you’re gonna play this team and hope to beat them. Florida did a great job tonight of staying really close but they were not perfect at the end of the day.”
No. 1 Alabama (11-0) is scheduled to take on No. 4 Notre Dame (10-1) in the College Football Playoff Semi-Finals at the Rose Bowl in Arlington, TX on Jan. 1 at 4 p.m. ET.
