That's why they play the games. Any given Sunday, or Monday in this case. I wonder how many TVs will have to be replaced in Alabama today.
Terrific game. Came down to the last play. What more could you ask for, other than a victory the other way? I'm proud of the Tide. Clemson played very well. Alabama's offense isn't built to come from behind. Hurts, for all his talent, isn't a downfield passer yet. No first downs for most of the second half. That's tough. As @Bama Samurai says - the football realist in me acknowledges that the better team won last night. Congrats to Clemson and native son Dabo for a great season!
Today is about Dabo and his Tigers. He built a Cadillac of a football team and the players made him a champion last night.
I imagine the plane ride last night was quiet, and may have included some instructions about controlling emotions. The personal fouls were costly and because of the talent on the Clemson side the fouls essentially were fourth quarter turnovers. Clemson made no fatal mistakes, and their defense line took full advantage of personnel situations, and in the second half Watson played a near perfect game.
To me it seemed Clemson just wore down the Tide's defense. They ran 99 plays, which is far more than Alabama had dealt with before. Clemson had the ball nearly 10 minutes longer than Alabama. There just wasn't anything left in the tank.
Clemson would have won the SEC, were they a part of it. Coach Swinney is returning glory to Death Valley. He might be Clemson's Nick Saban. I predict a strong run is coming for the Tigers over the next decade or two, if they stick with Swinney.
It's all about recruiting. With a NC Trophy sitting in the case at Clemson that is going to be a lot easier. Saban will still get his statue next to the Bear IMHO.
The inability of Alabama to sustain any drives was a killer in many ways. Clearly that limits scoring, but when you can sustain drives, it eats some clock, rests your own defense, and wears on the opposing defense. I told some friends around the third or fourth game of the season that Hurts could not throw downfield with any consistency, and that would catch up to us at some point. Their response was that his completion percentage was higher than Jake Coker's last year, but I told them then that most of Hurts' passes were very short passes behind the line. If you considered only passes of more than say 10 yards, I bet his completion percentage for those passes would be well less than 40%, and that willl get you beat when playing an evenly matched team. It did.
