Clemson Gets its Revenge...
Clemson Gets its Revenge and Ends a Drought
The College Football National Championship game on January 9th was perhaps the best championship game in college football in a very long time. This game featured the high-powered, explosive offense of Dabo Swinney and his Clemson Tigers versus the defensive juggernaut in Nick Saban’s Alabama Crimson Tide. It was a true representation of a powerhouse on both sides of the football. To make it even better, it was a rematch of the National Championship game of a year ago. A game in which Alabama broke the hearts of Tigers everywhere with a 45-40 victory.
Going into the National Championship game, Alabama had put on perhaps the best defensive seasons in college football history. Ending the regular season with a defensive efficiency of 98.0 per ESPN. This efficiency once again proved its proved its worth in the CFP Semifinal game versus a very good Washington team led by Jake Browning. Alabama held Washington to 7 points and under 200 yards of total offense.
Meanwhile, Clemson was putting on a show of its own against an Ohio State team whose only loss in the regular season came on a blocked kick to Penn State in the middle of the season. Led by the passing attack of Deshaun Watson, Clemson thrashed Ohio State with an impressive 31-0 victory to cruise into a matchup with Alabama in the CFP Championship Game in Tampa Florida.
And with the kickoff at 8:15 on January 9th, one of the best College Football Championship Games in recent history was born. In a game featuring the revenge hungry Tigers, and a Crimson Tide team looking to prolong its status as the top dog, this game brought us a back and forth game for the ages. And Clemson, with its junior, NFL bound quarterback, found themselves down by three with 2:07 left on the clock after a 30-yard scramble to the end zone on a broken play by Bama’s true freshman quarterback Jalen Hurts. With two timeouts and 68 yards to go, Clemson was poised for a chance to dethrone the Crimson Tide. Deshaun Watson lead Clemson down the field and to do just that, finding Hunter Renfrow in the end zone for a 2-yard completion and a 35-31 lead with one second left. And one onside kick and a kneel down by Watson, Clemson had done it. They had dethroned the Alabama Crimson Tide and won their first title in 35 years. A victory 35 years in the making after one long year of hoping for the chance at vengeance, Clemson found themselves at the pinnacle of college football immortality.