🏈 GAME THREAD SUGAR BOWL: Alabama vs Clemson

[TerryP]

 

[TerryP]

• ESPN Airs Traditional Telecast of the Rose Bowl Game Presented by Northwestern Mutual and Allstate Sugar Bowl
• Coaches Film Room’s Semifinals Debut among 10 Additional Presentations for Each Semifinal across Seven Different ESPN Platforms: Productions Available on ESPN’s Networks and ESPN App
  • Dino Babers, Bret Bielema, Larry Fedora, Dana Holgorsen, Matt Luke and Gary Patterson among Participating Coaches
• Extensive New Year’s Weekend Studio Lineup Live from New Orleans and Pasadena, Including Twitter-Only Show
• ESPN, ESPN Deportes, ESPN Radio Carry All Additional New Year’s Six Games: Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, PlayStation Fiesta Bowl, Capital One Orange Bowl, and Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl

ESPN’s presentation of the College Football Playoff Semifinals on New Year’s Day will include its acclaimed MegaCast production, as the traditional telecast of the Rose Bowl Game Presented by Northwestern Mutual featuring No. 2 Oklahoma vs. No. 3 Georgia (5 p.m.) and the Allstate Sugar Bowl between No. 1 Clemson and No. 4 Alabama on ESPN will be supplemented with 10 alternate viewing options across ESPN2, ESPNEWS, ESPN Goal Line, ESPN Deportes, SEC Network and multiple ESPN3 feeds. Each of the presentations will be available on the ESPN App.

This year’s viewing options are the most-ever for the CFP Semifinals. Details on ESPN’s CFP National Championship Presented by AT&T MegaCast (Jan. 8) will be announced next week.

ESPN’s Presentation of the College Football Playoff Semifinals New Year’s Day
The College Football Playoff Semifinals will return to the Rose Bowl and Mercedes-Benz Superdome, the first venues to hold the premier games for a second time. ESPN will have more than 50 cameras, including 4K cameras, inside the two iconic stadiums, capturing all the action and emotion.

ESPN will debut a camera inside the first-down-marker at the Sugar Bowl, the first time a camera has been positioned inside the equipment. The unique vantage point will provide viewers a look at the line to gain. ESPN tested the technology at this year’s Celebration Bowl.

Additional Production Highlights:

• Inside the Locker Rooms: Cameras affixed inside the locker room anteroom area will provide unique access as the teams come and go from the field.
• Super-Slow Motion: Cameras will provide precise, tight camera shots throughout the game and capture the emotion of the matchups.
• Pylon Cams: All eight pylons will be equipped with four cameras, allowing for camera angles along the goal line, sideline and backline.
• Aerial Coverage: The Goodyear Blimp will fly high above, providing views above Pasadena and New Orleans.

Commentators:
Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit, Tom Rinaldi and Maria Taylor will call the Rose Bowl Game while Joe Tessitore, Todd Blackledge, Holly Rowe and Laura Rutledge will work the Sugar Bowl. This will be the fourth straight year Fowler, Herbstreit and Rinaldi call a CFP Semifinal together and they welcome in Taylor, who makes her debut. This is the second year that Tessitore, Blackledge, and Rowe have worked together for a CFP Semifinal and Rutledge’s first. Overall, this is Blackledge and Rowe’s fourth semifinal. At the Rose Bowl, Rinaldi will report on Oklahoma with Taylor covering Georgia.

College Football Playoff Semifinals MegaCast:
ESPN’s traditional telecast will be accompanied by a number of alternate presentations for both games. Each presentation is available on the ESPN App:

• Command Center Telecast (ESPN2 and ESPN App):A split-screen with multiple camera views displayed simultaneously, which could include the main ESPN camera angle, the SkyCam view and isolated camera feeds of both head coaches at any given time. Enhanced statistics and real-time drive charts supplement the game action.
• Coaches Film Room (ESPNEWS and ESPN App):The popular Coaches Film Room makes its CFP Semifinals debut after successful, well-received airings during the CFP National Championship Megacast the last three seasons. Dino Babers (Syracuse), Bret Bielema, Larry Fedora (North Carolina), Dana Holgorsen (West Virginia), Matt Luke (Ole Miss) and Gary Patterson (TCU) are among the participating coaches. The presentation features coaches providing in-depth analysis from a film room equipped with multiple camera angles, clicker technology and telestration. Once again, it will be presented with limited commercial breaks.
• Finebaum Film Room(SEC Network and ESPN App): Airing for both CFP Semifinals for the first time, Paul Finebaum, along with a bevy of analysts will watch the games, while providing constant banter and analysis. Along with Finebaum, Gene Chizik, Greg McElroy, Booger McFarland, Jesse Palmer, Marcus Spears, and Tim Tebow will rotate throughout the two games. Vanderbilt head coach Derek Mason will also join the show, and, in Finebaum tradition, the group will take phone calls from fans. Complete details on SEC Network’s CFP Semifinals coverage can be found here.
• Hometown Audio (ESPN3 and ESPN App): The local radio broadcasts from all four participating teams, in conjunction with IMG, JMI Sports and Learfield Sports synched up to ESPN’s main telecast.
• DataCenter (ESPN Goal Line and ESPN App): ESPN’s main TV production is supplemented by statistics, social media reaction and additional relevant information for an enhanced real-time experience on one screen.
• SkyCam (ESPN3 and ESPN App): A view ESPN has offered for many years and gained traction this season across the sport: A permanent view from above the action and behind the offense on most plays.
• All-22 (ESPN3 and ESPN App): Watch the game the same way players and coaches study the game. This vantage point comes from high atop the stadium, in the end zone, providing a consistent view of all 22 players on the field at the same time.
• ESPN Deportes and ESPN App: Kenneth Garay and Sebastian Martinez-Christensen (Rose Bowl Game) and Lalo Varela, Pablo Viruega (Sugar Bowl) on the Spanish-language calls of the game.
• ESPN Radio and ESPN App: Steve Levy, Brian Griese and Todd McShay (Rose Bowl Game) and Bill Rosinski, David Norrie and Ian Fitzsimmons (Sugar Bowl) call the games. The broadcast is available throughout the country to more than 400 ESPN Radio stations, ESPNRadio.com, SirusXMRadio, the ESPN app, Apple Music, TuneIn and Slacker Radio.

ESPN will have expansive onsite coverage on New Year’s Day and the entire final weekend of 2017 from New Orleans and Pasadena, Calif. leading into the CFP Semifinals. In addition to College GameDay (9 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., ESPN) and SEC Nation Presented by AT&T (10 a.m. – noon, SEC Network), which was announced last week as part of the more than 15 hours of onsite coverage, ESPN has added Champ Drive Live with Mike Golic Jr. and Jason Fitz to its New Year’s Day Lineup. The Twitter-only show (4 – 5:10 p.m.) on January 1 is produced for social media and leads into the Rose Bowl Game. The special presentation is an extension of the previous six-episode CFP Rankings Reaction show, which reached 5.75 million viewers on Twitter – with a growing audience for each successive episode, peaking at 3.5 million for the final show (Dec. 3).

Complete details on ESPN’s onsite coverage from the CFP Semifinals, which begins Thursday, Dec. 28, is here.

More on their NY6 game coverage here at this jump.

 

[EasyTider]

Rumors of Jacobs being out with hamstring injury picking up steam overnight. That'll be a kick in the testicular region to start 2018.

Update-have seen a few rebuttals claiming Jacobs was referring to James Harden hamstring injury in his Snapchat. Guess we'll know soon enough.

 

[TerryP]

Rumors of Jacobs being out with hamstring injury picking up steam overnight. That'll be a kick in the testicular region to start 2018.

He was moving slow at practice this week.
He was moving slow at practice the week before last.
He was moving slow at practice the week before that.
He was moving slow ...

None of this means he's out. Let's not forget he's been dealing with an injury for awhile now.

 

[17BAMA]

ROLL TIDE ROLL!!! Let's bring #17 home!

 

[TerryP]

Here's a few things I've found interesting looking at this game.

• When it comes to explosive passing plays Bryant is completing about 1 of 5 passes over 20 yards.
• Last season we saw Clemson go off in the fourth quarter. This season they've only outscored opponents by one point in the fourth. Bama, on the other hand, has outscored its opponents almost 2 to 1 in the same period.
• I don't expect Clemson to have any success running the ball between the tackles. The best interior defensive line they faced this season (IMO it's Miami) stuffed their running game.
• Pick your poison. That's what I see Pruitt and company left with. I'm hoping they don't go with the scheme of leaving two safeties deep (Cover 2, two deep shell, whatever you want to call this scheme) because of one person--you know who. I do hope they leave one safety back and that goes back to the first thing I mentioned. That will leave the sidelines difficult to defend but Bryant hasn't shown the ability to make those throws consistently.
• Bama has to challenge those short routes on early downs. That's how Clemson has been moving the ball. I'd like to see as many as 10 defenders within the first seven/eight yards of the line of scrimmage. The Tigers don't have the height they did last on the longer sideline routes which should take away those "go get the ball" plays for their receivers.
• On the same note, those short routes is where I see the Bama offense attacking. It's an area Clemson has left open this season.
• From what I've been told over the last few days I'm hoping/expecting to see Bama attack the perimeter with the running game
• I realize there are folks who have their issues with Jalen and Daboll. I don't believe Jalen needs to have a break-out game for Bama to roll. As long as we don't see stupid mistakes; just play to the teams' strengths.
• Auburn was running rub routes/pick plays against Bama and likely followed what they saw from Clemson last season. I want to see quick switches in short yardage situations where the possibility of those calls increases.
• Do you want to know how many points Bama needs to score in this game? One more than Clemson.

A final question. If this game ends up being a tough one (which shouldn't come as a shock) will we see a lot of fans in this game thread simply lose it ... or, just let the game play out?

 

[alagator]

“I asked the leadership group on the team, I said, ‘What about curfews?’” Saban said on his pre-Sugar Bowl radio show. “Well, most of the time they want to stay out and all this and that. They said, ‘One night, 12 o’clock. The rest of the time, 11 o’clock.’ So, I was, for the first time in my coaching career, saying, ‘You sure you don’t want to stay out maybe till 11:30 one night?’

“It’s all good.”

For a third postseason in a row, Alabama will face Clemson, only this time in a semifinal.

The Tigers defeated the Tide in Round 2 in January’s national title game. That coupled with the way the regular season ended and the last two losses in appearances in the Sugar Bowl led to a different approach for Alabama’s players in the College Football Playoff.

“I said after last year’s game when we played these guys ‘don’t waste a failing,’ and I think that really helped our team develop the team that we have this year through the offseason and through a big part of this season,” Saban said.

“And I think losing the Auburn game sort of did the same thing in terms of players being more willing to make changes and do things that they needed to do to play at a high level and a high standard. The complacency sort of went away.

“But whatever happens in this game, I cannot really ever blame that on how focused our players have been in terms of what they’ve done in this whole month that we worked out, had practice, the practices that we had here.”

Alabama vs. Clemson: Nick Saban says Alabama's mindset is evident with veterans' curfew decision

 

[#80]

Do we get Herbie and Fowler calling this game?

 

[#80]

Sounds like Herbie and Fowler are calling the RB. So I guess we get Blackledge and Nessler.

 

[alabama mike]

It’s Nessie and Blackledge, thankful it’s not Danielson.

 

[TUSKtimes]

Is ESPN syncing an app on the Alabama radio call?

 

[JoseyWalesTheOutlaw]

Roll Tide...........

Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you're not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. 'Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That's just the way it is.

 

[rick4bama]

Do we get Herbie and Fowler calling this game?

• At 8:45 p.m., the Sugar Bowl will be broadcast on ESPN and include Joe Tessitore, Todd Blackledge, Holly Rowe and Laura Rutledge. I think these two doing our game is the best choice.

 

[#80]

• At 8:45 p.m., the Sugar Bowl will be broadcast on ESPN and include Joe Tessitore, Todd Blackledge, Holly Rowe and Laura Rutledge. I think these two doing our game is the best choice.

Damn I wish it was Nessler I don't care for JT.

 

[TerryP]

Is ESPN syncing an app on the Alabama radio call?

ESPN3

 

[TerryP]

The info on the mega cast has been added to this thread...scroll up.

SECN is doing a Goal Line broadcast for the games up until the Rose Bowl. They'll be flipping to the Film Room at 5ET.

 

[Tidestalker]

Here's a few things I've found interesting looking at this game.

• When it comes to explosive passing plays Bryant is completing about 1 of 5 passes over 20 yards.
• Last season we saw Clemson go off in the fourth quarter. This season they've only outscored opponents by one point in the fourth. Bama, on the other hand, has outscored its opponents almost 2 to 1 in the same period.
• I don't expect Clemson to have any success running the ball between the tackles. The best interior defensive line they faced this season (IMO it's Miami) stuffed their running game.
• Pick your poison. That's what I see Pruitt and company left with. I'm hoping they don't go with the scheme of leaving two safeties deep (Cover 2, two deep shell, whatever you want to call this scheme) because of one person--you know who. I do hope they leave one safety back and that goes back to the first thing I mentioned. That will leave the sidelines difficult to defend but Bryant hasn't shown the ability to make those throws consistently.
• Bama has to challenge those short routes on early downs. That's how Clemson has been moving the ball. I'd like to see as many as 10 defenders within the first seven/eight yards of the line of scrimmage. The Tigers don't have the height they did last on the longer sideline routes which should take away those "go get the ball" plays for their receivers.
• On the same note, those short routes is where I see the Bama offense attacking. It's an area Clemson has left open this season.
• From what I've been told over the last few days I'm hoping/expecting to see Bama attack the perimeter with the running game
• I realize there are folks who have their issues with Jalen and Daboll. I don't believe Jalen needs to have a break-out game for Bama to roll. As long as we don't see stupid mistakes; just play to the teams' strengths.
• Auburn was running rub routes/pick plays against Bama and likely followed what they saw from Clemson last season. I want to see quick switches in short yardage situations where the possibility of those calls increases.
• Do you want to know how many points Bama needs to score in this game? One more than Clemson.

A final question. If this game ends up being a tough one (which shouldn't come as a shock) will we see a lot of fans in this game thread simply lose it ... or, just let the game play out?

Probably the best post I've seen on this board. Nice work Terry!

The part I found interesting is that we need to get tighter on those short routes, and you expect Clemson to give those up consistently. HUGE part of the game there. I feel like on third down we've given up way to many "gimme" 4-5-6 yard quick shots without even contesting. Would love to see us squat on those. On the flip side if you were the Clemson DC, would you really allow Jalen to have freebie quick looks? It's a given that he struggles to make his progressions. Would give the left nut to see him hit 3 deep balls today... Especially a few in the second half. RTR

 

[alagator]

Probably the best post I've seen on this board. Nice work Terry!

He used to do these all the time. Nice outlook @TerryP

 

[JoseyWalesTheOutlaw]

I am hopeful Nick and staff have created a plan that will be helpful to the talent of #2. JMO but less 4 wideouts and more two backs (using one as a dump-off) would be helpful. The defense has to keep Clemson to no more than 20 points if we're too win.

 

[TerryP]

JMO but less 4 wideouts and more two backs (using one as a dump-off) would be helpful.

I'm not expecting a lot of two back sets if we see any. I am fully expecting to see a lot of the ACE formation. Two guys I'd watch for are Leatherwood or Wills.