re: Just watching the game, the Honey Badger was owned

Something that hasn't been mentioned in this thread. Claiborne is LSU's other corner, most(sane) LSU fans know that Claiborne is a better cover corner. Alabama's coaches know Claiborne is a better cover corner, AJ McCarron knows Claiborne is a better cover corner, so he's going to want to throw it to Mathieu's man more than Claiborne's.
Mathieu deserved to be in New York, and deserved to be an All American. Being a cornerback is more than just coverage skills, and he played lights out for most of the year.

As far as being dragged by Bell, Peterson got dragged by Newton during his "heisman moment" and while I understand that Bell is nothing compared to Cam Newton, everyone has bad plays, and bad games.
Unfortunently for LSU, most of our team decided to have bad games and acted like they had already won the MNC.

I'm happy with how the year went, while I obviously would have preferred being undefeated and national champions, I'll take SEC champs and 13-1, including a 1-1 split with the national champions.

Is Honey Badger overrated? Absolutely, but that doesn't mean he isn't one of the best CBs in college football.