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Alabama football declared unanimous champion

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By Dennis Washington - bio | email
John Affleck, the Sports Enterprise Editor for the Associated Press, presents the AP college football trophy to Nick Saban (Jan. 10, 2012, WBRC photo) John Affleck, the Sports Enterprise Editor for the Associated Press, presents the AP college football trophy to Nick Saban (Jan. 10, 2012, WBRC photo)
NEW ORLEANS (WBRC) -

The University of Alabama was officially declared the champion of college football Tuesday by all of the organizations who name a winner, including the BCS and the Associated Press.

Head coach Nick Saban accepted the trophies during a ceremony Tuesday morning in New Orleans. Alabama was voted the overwhelming favorite in all of the polls after defeating the LSU Tigers 21-0 in the BCS Championship game Monday night in the Superdome.

"It's a great honor and a privilege for the University of Alabama, our football team, our program, to accept these trophies on behalf of the entire team," Saban said. "There's a lot of people who contribute to the success of the program: our administration, Dr. Witt, Mal Moore, our athletic director, and our administration... certainly and probably the people who get the least amount of credit that deserve a lot more is our coaching staff and the people who work with the players on a day-to-day basis to help them be successful personally, academically, and athletically, so that they can take advantage of their gifts and be all that they can be... and, lastly, those who made the commitment to make this accomplishment together as a team, our football players."

Saban said he was very proud of this championship win... maybe even more so than the win two years ago.

"I'm very proud of the togetherness, the teamwork," Saban said. "This team was a special team, not that the 2009 team was any different.  And certainly an honor and a privilege to be with a group that sort of, I don't know, made the kind of commitment that you look for from a competitive character standpoint and intangibles that you always strive to try to get as a coach in a group, whether it's togetherness, the positive attitude, the responsibility and accountability they took for each other and themselves and the hard work and discipline that went in sort of the development of this team.

"It was a really special group.  And I feel very privileged to have been a part of that."

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