In the first ever College Football Playoff, Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide rolled into the newly formed tournament as the top-ranked team in the country. But with Alabama nabbing the title, its name is attached to a historic win for the school and its coach, Nick Saban. And on SI.com, Pete Thamel writes that “Saban’s savvy led to the Tide’s fourth national title in the last seven years, a stunning run of dominance in the modern era that begs a question that once would have been considered sacrilege: Is Saban the best coach in college football history?”.
Advertisement
In the end, it was too much Alabama, and the Tide won their fourth national crown in the past seven years.
Clemson is the favorite to win the 2017 National Championship, just ahead of Alabama.
With a national championship in danger of slipping away, Alabama needed to come up with something big as Monday night began approaching Tuesday morning. Watson was one of three Heisman finalists this season (along with the trophy victor, Alabama running back Derrick Henry).
Yes, Henry ran for 158 yards and three touchdowns on 36 carries, including a 50-yard touchdown in the first quarter.
Howard kept sneaking behind the Clemson defenders and finding himself wide open for big plays: touchdowns of 51 and 53 yards and a galloping 63-yarder in the fourth quarter that set up Alabama’s final touchdown.
“They noticed that when they watched film”, Humphrey said. But right before the game could be handed over to Bama, Watson and his Tigers scored a touchdown making it 38-33 with less than 5:00 min left on the clock.
Clemson coach Dabo Swinney argued with the officials that the kick was against the rules and the outburst may have distracted his team as it allowed a 51-yard touchdown pass two plays later.
It took two long touchdown plays to rarely targeted tight end O.J. Howard, plenty of special teams magic and dodging daggers from Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson, who accounted for 473 of Clemson’s 550 total yards.
The Bucs strangely fired Lovie Smith last Wednesday, and the conventional wisdom was that Tampa Bay made this abrupt move to promote offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter, who was being eyed by other teams with openings.
Watson gave the Tide all they could handle, throwing for 405 yards and four touchdowns. Clemson scored on a pass from Watson to tight end Jordan Leggett with 12 seconds left, but Alabama recovered the onside kick. The Crimson Tide pulled off that feat during the 2011-12 seasons, and what Alabama accomplished then gives us an idea about the challenge that awaits next season.
Clemson’s dream of a flawless season was buried in an avalanche of big plays by Alabama.
Watson had two scoring passes to Hunter Renfrow in the opening half, the first coming as he sweetly dropped the ball into his receiver’s arms between two Alabama defenders.
“We try to emphasize with our players if you’re a first-round draft pick, the business decision is you should go out for the draft”, Saban said. While the network was reportedly charging advertisers up to 30% more per 30-second commercial unit for this year’s championship game telecast, it is not known whether the network had also bumped up its ratings guarantees by 30%, although that seems unlikely. It was a No. 1 vs. No. 2 game, and USC was loaded – with two Heisman winners in running back Reggie Bush and quarterback Matt Leinart. It ended in a 31-yard field goal from Huegel to cut the deficit to four points with under eight minutes left in the action. He also coached LSU to a national title in 2003.
Advertisement
Howard finished with five catches for 208 yards, the first 100-yard receiving game of his career.
