The Clemson Tigers are the number one ranked team in the nation arriving at this game at 14-0 for the season.
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This is business as usual for Saban and Alabama, a yearly fixture at or near the top of the rankings and a participant in last year’s initial four-team playoff when the Tide lost to eventual champ Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl semifinal.
For the Clemson Tigers to come away with their fist national championship in 34 years next Monday night it will have to be done with less preparation than Alabama will have due to classes at Clemson starting back on Wednesdayâmeaning the Tigers will be bound to the 20-hour per week limit put on teams during school.
“He’s steady, boy”, Swinney said with a grin. “But after Alabama’s romping last week it is becoming more and more one-sided with over 75 percent of the money on the Crimson (Tide)”.
Inside the Crimson universe, Alabama fans think they get no respect. “That’s for sure”, Swinney said. “The Lord just took me on a different path. I feel like the Lord led me to make this decision that I made to get my degree and go ahead and take my chance at the National Football League”. That’s just fine with him. Finishing second on the season in overall defense, there hasn’t been too many offensive schemes they haven’t stopped. Defensive coordinator Kirby Smart and the defensive staff have not only loaded up the front with stellar depth (Dalvin Tomlinson, Dillon Lee, Reuben Foster and even Tim Williams deserve some mention as well), but they have figured out best substitution practices against all kinds of offensive attacks.
My takeaway from feasting on football over the holidays is that an eight-team playoff would be better than the four-team format and despite preseason predictions that the SEC might not be the top league in college football, that was not the case.
Swinney, a ‘Bama alum, loves Bear Bryant just as much as you do. He was subsequently a graduate assistant for the Tide and assistant coach until he became an assistant at Clemson. His head coach emphatically touted Watson as the best player in the country in his postgame news conference. The other one reads, “M&M Hardware, the best hardware store in town”.
From Clemson’s star quarterback to Alabama’s treacherous defensive line, there is no shortage of interesting angles from which to look at the 2016 College Football Playoff National Championship on Monday.
There are two pictures in Swinney’s office of former Red Bank Lions and Alabama linebacker Victor Ellis, who died of a rare and brutally aggressive form of cancer in March 2008. When Tom Causey was hired as Pelham’s football coach a year ago, Swinney got in touch.
The total for this game keeps dropping likely due to how well both of the defenses played last week but I still see this game going over the total and the lower it gets the stronger the play is. But I grew up in Tuscaloosa, basically.
Have you ever wondered what those Alabama tents on the sidelines are for? I mean, Nick Saban is Nick Saban.
“It was sore. Everything they told me that they wanted me to do, I was able to do it. It’s just getting used to wearing the brace and everything like that”.
“We’ve talked about it at the house, and we’re pulling for Alabama”, said Tim, a past president of the Chattanooga chapter of the Alabama Alumni & Friends Association, “but we would also be really happy for Dabo if Clemson won”.
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“I’m hopeful that will be the right combination”, Saban said.
