This year, the team has elected to leave their draft grades unknown until after Monday’s national championship game.
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“This is the first one I’ve sniffed as a coach, and he’s going for his fifth”, said Swinney, who is in his eighth season at Clemson. “I’m sure (if) we’re fortunate to win this game, we’ll have a staff meeting at 7:30 the next morning”.
It’s the powerful Southeastern Conference against the still-fighting-for-respect Atlantic Coast Conference.
Clemson’s Dabo Swinney and Alabama’s Nick Saban will be on opposite sidelines Monday night in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game, but they are certainly in the same camp when it comes to deadlines for underclassmen declaring for the NFL Draft. “I think the early loss to Ole Miss probably did a lot to jilt the attitude of this team in helping them do the things they needed to do, to be what they could be and follow and do the things that were necessary for them to be a good football team”, Saban said.
Which brings us to Clemson, Alabama’s opponent in Monday’s College Football Playoff Championship Game in Glendale, Ariz.
“It’s not like I like to go to the karaoke machine and sing and all that”, he said, “but there’s a lot of things that I enjoy”.
Swinney downplayed the perceived snub. They were happy to see their favorite players up close and personal. No one has capitalized yet, but Alabama is more than capable.
Auburn’s Cam Newton, Texas A&M’s Johnny Manziel and others such as Ohio State’s Cardale Jones and Mississippi’s Chad Kelly led their teams past the Crimson Tide as passers and runners. They advanced to the championship game with a 37-17 victory over No. 4 Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl. Gallman ran for 150 yards and two touchdowns. Alabama 28, Clemson 13.
“I don’t know that anybody stops Deshaun Watson”.
Defense matters: Alabama is second in total offense and may have the most talented front seven since the heyday of Miami.
Robinson and lineman Jarran Reed are rated as National Football League first-round draft picks, as is linebacker Reggie Ragland, the signal caller and defensive quarterback for the Tide. Saban built Alabama to win forever, which it’s in the process of doing. The Crimson Tide are rolling, entering the championship game off a 38-0 destruction of Clemson.
Alabama: RB Derrick Henry is the Heisman Trophy victor with 2,061 yards rushing and 25 touchdowns in his first season as the Crimson Tide’s fulltime starter. “Keep the tradition going”. The rushing yards and touchdowns are SEC records.
The campaign also said Carson was happy to pray for the Clemson team because he felt they too were the underdogs and that Carson believes in the underdogs. The biggest notch against him? “We were the underdog in all of our big games this year”.
Alabama (13-1) trounced Michigan State with a stellar defensive effort and by utilizing Henry mainly as a decoy.
If Alabama beats the Tigers to win a fourth national title in seven seasons, the argument might be settled. “If I could just script it, if I could just say hey, you’re going to get a chance to play the national championship game at some point, who do you want it to be against?” – I have yet to talk to or hear anyone who’s picking Clemson to win, unless they’re trying to be quirky.
Clemson’s B.J. Goodson tries to blocks a pass thrown by Syracuse’s Zack Mahoney. “But our guys have done a really good job of sort of using the rest time that they have, that when we are practicing and preparing, their focus has been opportunity good”.
“We take it as motivation”, Mike Williams said. “Each and every week we go out and earn it”.
Swinney expects defensive end Shaq Lawson to play tonight. The conference did make the playoff this year with Big 12 champ Oklahoma losing to Clemson in the Capital One Orange Bowl, but it has yet to appear in the title game in two years.
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Swinney is one of the few who actually loves and hates Alabama, a school where he played, graduated and coached.
