Though Clemson mustered a field goal on the next possession to stay within range, Alabama running back Kenyan Drake took the ensuing kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown with 7:31 remaining for a 38-27 lead. Moments later, Tide safety Eddie Jacksonintercepted a Watson pass to set up the tying touchdown as Alabama moved 42 yards to a 1-yard dive by Henry to tie the score at 14-14. A daring on side kick with the score tied 24-all led to an Alabama points explosion, with quarterback Jake Coker throwing for two long touchdowns to tight end O.
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Bama turned that into a touchdown and a 31-24 lead.
Alabama tight end O.J. Howard hadn’t caught a touchdown pass since 2013.
He was the difference against Clemson and head coach Dabo Swinney, a son of Alabama and player on the Crimson Tide’s 1992 national championship team.
But Saban’s still taking a backseat to Bear Bryant, the former Alabama head coach who won six national titles in the ’60s and ’70s.
Mistakes Clemson overcame all year were costly: The Tigers have struggled stopping big plays for much of the season, and those struggles were costly against the Crimson Tide.
Coker finished 16-for-25 for 335 yards and two touchdowns.
“I’ve never been prouder of a group of young guys”.
OR was done before that night even began, physically spent in the first season of the four-team College Football Playoff. If we count all national championships recognized by the NCAA, Alabama is still behind Yale, who has won 17 titles (see second chart below).
O.J. HOWARD Prior to Monday night’s game, Howard had 210 receiving yards in nine SEC games.
The Clemson quarterback finished third in the Heisman Trophy voting last month, but he started his campaign for next year with a thoroughly impressive performance on the game’s biggest stage. “Championship football is a game of a few plays, and that’s what this game came down to, just a few plays”, Swinney said.
Throughout Alabama’s unprecedented run under Saban, the Tide was hardly challenged in a championship game. The potent Cornhuskers needed a trick play – a “fumblerooski” TD by lineman Dean Steinkuhler – to stay in the game.
The onside kick call took guts, but had it been unsuccessful, Saban and his staff would have been second-guessed. He was virtually a one-man show in keeping the Tigers ahead for a while.
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Hey, the Tide practice that pop kick once a week, every week, and it was unused until the final quarter of the 15th game of the season, and he did it even though the last time they practiced it, Adam Griffith made the ideal kick but freshman defensive back Marlon Humphrey dropped it. “We dropped some balls and just had some miscues… and it’s hard to beat a team like Alabama if you make those mistakes”. “I just wanted to get the win and do something that we haven’t done in 34 years”.
