The college football national championship game was some four months ago. We remember the game. Clemson hammered the Alabama Crimson Tide 44-16. It was a 4 TD beatdown, that was the worst loss of Nick Saban’s career. Take the crimson and white off the uniforms and Clemson made Alabama look like a pretty ordinary college football team. They aren’t really of course, but Clemson made them look that way.
The part that continues to boggle my mind is Alabama just can’t admit Clemson was better. They couldn’t when we discussed the issue in February and they can’t now.
From a ClemsonInsider piece, here are some quotes from Alabama QB Tua Tagovailoa
“Coach (Nick) Saban always talks about the Alabama factor around here,” he said. “We feel as if we are entitled to things that we did not have to work as hard for, but that is not true. We just took that for granted because we were winning so much.
“You know, we just did not do things the right way after (the second half of the season) and it ended up catching up with us. It was just a cumulative of everything that we were not able to fix as a team.”
Well that makes sense. If Alabama had done just the little things they would have made up the 4 TD difference.
It all comes from the top though. These Nick Saban quotes are from another ClemsonInsider article.
“From the LSU game on last year, I thought we started to lose that a little bit. I don’t know if we lost our humility, which can cause a little bit of complacency and blatant disregard for doing what is right.”
Saban said they had a lot of internal distractions from players worrying about their draft stock, to coaches focused on other jobs.
Ah ok… so Alabama in the national title game was distracted and complacent, and that was the reason Clemson’s D Line turned into a brick in the red zone. It must have been the little things that made QB Trevor Lawrence and the Clemson WRs treat the Alabama pass defense like it was an organized scrimmage.
If Alabama wants to believe the loss had more to do with them than Clemson, then that should make Dabo Swinney very happy. That means Alabama won’t really address how Clemson beat them, but will continue to look internally for answers.
I’m glad Clemson didn’t take that approach following their playoff loss to Alabama the year before. Alabama was better in their 24 – 6 win over Clemson. Sure Clemson didn’t play their best, but that was because they were out executed and out-coached the Tigers. Clemson had to make substantial changes in personal to beat Alabama, like replacing QB Kelly Bryant with freshman QB Trevor Lawrence. This isn’t a knock on Bryant either. He’s a good college QB, but if you can’t go over the top of Alabama you aren’t finding “little things” or “an attitude adjustment” to beat them.
If I’m Alabama I’m asking why my DB’s kept getting beat in the one on one matchups with Clemson’s WRs.
If I’m Alabama, I’m sitting down with Tua Tagovailoa and I’m trying to figure out why Clemson’s coverage coaxed him into 2 interceptions.
It’s must have been the draft stock they were worried about or something like that apparently.
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