NEW ORLEANS

Alabama drew a little motivation for Monday night’s BCS national championship game against LSU from a sneak preview of the about-to-be-released movie “Redtails.”

Coach Nick Saban said the movie that the team saw Sunday night, is about an American air squadron in World War II. It is loosely based on the famed Tuskegee Airmen.

“Those guys’ motto was ‘the last plane, the last bullet, the last man, the last minute, we always fight. We always stay with the mission.’ ” Saban said. “That kind of describes the spirit of that group and it also described the spirit of the group of players we have on our team this year.”

It’s always somewhat of a cliché to think that a movie can motivate a team to greatness, but that fighting spirit certainly described Alabama’s effort in every facet of what turned out to be a deceptively easy 21-0 victory in the rematch with the Tigers.

From the opening kickoff in which Trey DePriest nearly decapitated Morris Claiborne, to Eddie Lacey’s 3-yard run on the final play, Alabama seemingly had the attitude that there was no way LSU was going to win this one.

This Alabama team played with a chip on its shoulder throughout the season. After a disappointing championship defense in 2010, it was all about that unfinished business around the team compound throughout 2011 and into 2012.

The mission almost was derailed in that first meeting this season with LSU. The overtime loss left Alabama, again, feeling like it had left a win on the table. Circumstances intervened and the Crimson Tide parlayed it into the rematch with the Tigers with the national championship at stake.

“It takes a tremendous amount of resiliency to come back,” said Saban, who now has three national titles on his resume. “It was tougher losing a game, and that demonstrates the character of the people in that locker room to come back from that game and finish the season like they did.

“The goal today was you control your destiny, you control what you do, The outcome of the game, as good as LSU was, will be determined by how we play and how well we do. The players really responded to that.”

That was the understatement of the night. It’s not like Alabama was playing a creampuff in the championship game. LSU had all of the credentials to go down as one of the best teams in college history if it could win the season’s final game — eight wins against Top 25 opponents, won the SEC West and SEC championships. Among its road wins were against Oregon, West Virginia and Alabama.

From the start, LSU had no answer for anything Alabama was doing. Only its ability to keep Alabama from scoring touchdowns when it got inside the 30 kept LSU in the game.

Rendered helpless on offense by Alabama‘s defense, LSU didn’t have a chance.

“We just wanted to go out and finish, and that’s what we did,” Courtney Upshaw said. “That’s our motto here.”

Saban said the message to his team was that it controlled its destiny Monday night no matter what LSU did.

“I think the players responded to that,” he said.

After Monday’s performance, nobody was going argue the point.

Contact Gregg Dewalt at 256-740-5748 or gregg.dewalt@timesdaily.com.