The 2012 Allstate BCS National Championship Game was a postseason college football bowl game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the LSU Tigers, and determined the national champion of the 2011 NCAA Division I FBS football season on Monday, January 9, 2012, at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. The game was part of the 2011–2012 Bowl Championship Series and a rematch of regular season foes. Alabama beat LSU 21–0 to win their 14th national championship, marking the first shutout in a national championship game since the 1992 Orange Bowl and the first ever shutout in a BCS bowl game. The game had the third-lowest TV rating, 14.01, in the 14-year history of the BCS National Championship game.

It was LSU's first loss in a bowl played in New Orleans (which has a close proximity to the LSU campus in Baton Rouge) since the 1987 Sugar Bowl.

LSU was selected to participate in the BCS National Championship Game after a 13–0 regular season that culminated with a 42–10 win over the University of Georgia in the 2011 SEC Championship Game. Alabama was picked as the other half of the match-up following an 11–1 campaign, with their only loss coming against LSU in overtime during the regular season. Over the following weeks, a series of upsets resulted in the Crimson Tide receiving a No. 2 ranking in the final BCS Rankings to qualify for the championship game. The selection of Alabama was controversial, and decried by writers such as Rick Reilly, and by fans who claimed other opponents, most prominently the Oklahoma State Cowboys (who finished second in most of the computer rankings), were more deserving of a spot in the game. The controversy lent support to the ever-increasing call for a college football playoff and supposed SEC bias, specifically with regard to Alabama. Ironically, it was the conferences whose teams finished 3rd and 4th (the Big 12 and the Pac-12) who had rejected the SEC's proposal for a 4-team playoff system in 2008.

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