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Kevin Scarbinsky | kscarbinsky@al.com
The third playoff meeting in three years between these elite programs and coaches feels like a special moment waiting to happen.
Some games, even a semifinal on the road to the national championship, are just games, especially for a coach and a program for whom these special occasions have become routine.
For Nick Saban and Alabama, the real season doesn't start until December.
Other games are moments, milestones, markers that draw a line between what came before and what comes after.
Alabama-Clemson Part III feels like a moment waiting to happen. More than a Sugar Bowl, more than a playoff semifinal, this game has all the makings of two dynasties passing in the night.
I know. It sounds crazy. Alabama's just two years removed from its last national championship, its fourth under Saban. It came against Clemson, no less, but that's the Crimson Tide's only big ring in the last four years.
Compared to the three titles the program captured from 2009 to 2012, that's an obvious sign of the big red machine slowing its roll ever so slightly.
One national championship in five years - or five decades - would lead to unrestrained jubilation in most places. Alabama has set its own bar so high, if it doesn't play and win two games in January, it'll feed the championship-or-bust beast even more.
Clemson doesn't face the same dynastic pressure as Alabama, even as the reigning national champion that dethroned the Tide and the No. 1 team entering this playoff. If Dabo Swinney and company lose Jan. 1 in the Superdome, it'll be a serious disappointment, but this program seems destined to add more championships to a trophy case with plenty of room.
Since the start of the 2011 season, only Alabama with 87 victories has more wins than Clemson's 82. Only Alabama with four playoff appearances has more than Clemson's three trips to college football's final four. Only Alabama and Clemson have won 10 games or more for at least the last seven seasons.
Consistent excellence, the hallmark of Saban's Alabama program, now applies to the operation Swinney has built at Clemson. The Tigers have 14 10-win seasons in their history. Half have come in the last seven years. They have four seasons with at least 12 wins in their entire existence. Swinney has been the head coach for three of them.
That's not merely a function of lengthier schedules. It's the result of a head coach growing into one of the best practitioners in his profession.
Swinney hasn't dethroned Saban as much as he's joined him at the top of the game, but the age difference between them can't be ignored. Saban is 66, and though he seems as if he could coach forever, no one outlasts Father Time. Swinney is 48, and though history shows it's rare to keep winning this way at any program, he's already shown an unusual staying power.
If Alabama wins this game, with a team no one would mistake for Saban's best, it'll be just the latest demonstration of his command. And then he'll have to face another challenger young enough to be his son in either Georgia's Kirby Smart, his most similar protege, or Oklahoma's Lincoln Riley.
If Clemson wins this game, if Alabama isn't good enough in its biggest game of the season for the fourth time in five years, it won't necessarily be the end of the dynasty in Tuscaloosa. It'll certainly be the next brick in building one at Clemson.
The last time Alabama met Clemson and it changed everything for both programs, Saban and the Crimson Tide crushed Tommy Bowden and the Tigers in the first Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game in the Georgia Dome in 2008.
The most telling number that day wasn't the 34-10 final score. It was Clemson's final total of 0 rushing yards as Alabama displayed the brute force that became its trademark.
Alabama was off and running toward an undefeated regular season. Clemson was six weeks away from a coaching change. Bowden was pushed out, making way for a little-known wide receivers coach named Swinney to take over, first as the interim guy, then as the actual head coach.
The former Alabama walk-on has made the most of that opportunity. Now he has a chance to stop Saban again from winning the sixth national title that would tie him with Bear Bryant and add one more of his own.
That 2008 Alabama win over Clemson was more than a game. It was a moment. It feels like we're headed toward history again on New Year's Day.
Continue reading...
Some games, even a semifinal on the road to the national championship, are just games, especially for a coach and a program for whom these special occasions have become routine.
For Nick Saban and Alabama, the real season doesn't start until December.
Other games are moments, milestones, markers that draw a line between what came before and what comes after.
Alabama-Clemson Part III feels like a moment waiting to happen. More than a Sugar Bowl, more than a playoff semifinal, this game has all the makings of two dynasties passing in the night.
I know. It sounds crazy. Alabama's just two years removed from its last national championship, its fourth under Saban. It came against Clemson, no less, but that's the Crimson Tide's only big ring in the last four years.
Compared to the three titles the program captured from 2009 to 2012, that's an obvious sign of the big red machine slowing its roll ever so slightly.
One national championship in five years - or five decades - would lead to unrestrained jubilation in most places. Alabama has set its own bar so high, if it doesn't play and win two games in January, it'll feed the championship-or-bust beast even more.
Clemson doesn't face the same dynastic pressure as Alabama, even as the reigning national champion that dethroned the Tide and the No. 1 team entering this playoff. If Dabo Swinney and company lose Jan. 1 in the Superdome, it'll be a serious disappointment, but this program seems destined to add more championships to a trophy case with plenty of room.
Since the start of the 2011 season, only Alabama with 87 victories has more wins than Clemson's 82. Only Alabama with four playoff appearances has more than Clemson's three trips to college football's final four. Only Alabama and Clemson have won 10 games or more for at least the last seven seasons.
Consistent excellence, the hallmark of Saban's Alabama program, now applies to the operation Swinney has built at Clemson. The Tigers have 14 10-win seasons in their history. Half have come in the last seven years. They have four seasons with at least 12 wins in their entire existence. Swinney has been the head coach for three of them.
That's not merely a function of lengthier schedules. It's the result of a head coach growing into one of the best practitioners in his profession.
Swinney hasn't dethroned Saban as much as he's joined him at the top of the game, but the age difference between them can't be ignored. Saban is 66, and though he seems as if he could coach forever, no one outlasts Father Time. Swinney is 48, and though history shows it's rare to keep winning this way at any program, he's already shown an unusual staying power.
If Alabama wins this game, with a team no one would mistake for Saban's best, it'll be just the latest demonstration of his command. And then he'll have to face another challenger young enough to be his son in either Georgia's Kirby Smart, his most similar protege, or Oklahoma's Lincoln Riley.
If Clemson wins this game, if Alabama isn't good enough in its biggest game of the season for the fourth time in five years, it won't necessarily be the end of the dynasty in Tuscaloosa. It'll certainly be the next brick in building one at Clemson.
The last time Alabama met Clemson and it changed everything for both programs, Saban and the Crimson Tide crushed Tommy Bowden and the Tigers in the first Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game in the Georgia Dome in 2008.
The most telling number that day wasn't the 34-10 final score. It was Clemson's final total of 0 rushing yards as Alabama displayed the brute force that became its trademark.
Alabama was off and running toward an undefeated regular season. Clemson was six weeks away from a coaching change. Bowden was pushed out, making way for a little-known wide receivers coach named Swinney to take over, first as the interim guy, then as the actual head coach.
The former Alabama walk-on has made the most of that opportunity. Now he has a chance to stop Saban again from winning the sixth national title that would tie him with Bear Bryant and add one more of his own.
That 2008 Alabama win over Clemson was more than a game. It was a moment. It feels like we're headed toward history again on New Year's Day.
Continue reading...
