As Alabama running back Najee Harris took a handoff, bounced outside and headed upfield, he was confronted by Notre Dame cornerback Nick McCloud, who charged up to meet him with his shoulder lowered.
No matter. Harris, a 6-foot-2, 229-pound senior, treated McCloud like an oversize fire hydrant, leaping over him with the clean, syncopated stride of an Olympic hurdler and galloping down the sideline.
The play was the signature moment in Alabama’s 31-14 victory over Notre Dame in a College Football Playoff semifinal Friday night in Arlington, Texas — Harris’s elegant athleticism epitomizing how effortlessly the Crimson Tide dispatched the Fighting Irish.