Alabama quarterback Bryce Young threw 344 yards and four touchdowns as front runner Crimson Tide began defending his national title with a 44-13 win over Miami in the Chick-fil-A-kickoff game in Atlanta on Saturday .
Young set the school record for most yards and touchdowns on a debut in his first college debut. He threw scoring strikes to John Metchie for 37 yards in the first half and hit Cameron Latu for scores of 9 and 25 yards in the second quarter. These catches for Latu were the first of his career.
Alabama, who has won 12 of their last 13 inter-school matches, scored the first five times he had the ball and dominated the scrimmage series as Young had ample time to complete 27 of his 38 passes to nine receivers. The tide amassed 501 yards of total offensive.
They opened the scoring with a 75-yard march with seven games into the end zone and hit pay-crap at Metchie’s touchdown catch. Alabama has now won 42 straight games when it first scored; his last such loss was in 2014 at the Sugar Bowl against Oklahoma.
Will Reichard also scored three field goals as Alabama took the lead 27-3 at halftime and kept Miami at 107 yards.
The defense also showed up, recording four sacks and seven tackles for loss while keeping the Hurricanes rushing to 69 yards.
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Miami returned 19 starters from last year’s team but couldn’t get going at any stage of the game. D’Eriq King, the senior quarterback just nine months away from reconstructive surgery for a torn cruciate ligament and meniscus, went 23-30 for 179 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions, the majority of which came after the game hand was good.
Miami’s best chance to change momentum and cut the big halftime deficit came with first possession of the second half, but King was crammed onto a quarterback sneaker trying to break the end zone with a fourth and a goal from the 1-yard Line to hit.
Three plays later, the competitive aspect of the game was complete when Young dropped a 94-yard touchdown bomb on a wide-open Jameson Williams to get the score 34-3.
Alabama is now 15-0 at the season opener under coach Nick Saban and will have another tuning against Mercer next week before traveling to Florida on September 18.
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