That's a fairly good team I have at 14/1.
Clemson is not in Alabama's league. If those teams played repeatedly with Kelly Bryant as Clemson quarterback then the result would be extremely similar every time...an Alabama grind victory. Only Deshaun Watson made it appear artificially close the past two years, as I posted last night. And it was still a 14 point Alabama lead in the 4th quarter with Watson last year.
This Alabama era is superior to anything the Canes ever managed. They simply look bigger and tougher and better coached than everyone they line up against. Everyone has massive arms and shoulders. This semifinal game went exactly like the semifinal against Michigan State two years ago and Washington last year. Alabama doesn't have the freakish pro caliber athletes at the skill positions like the Canes often did, but they more than make up for that by simply looking like a pro team playing against college kids. The pass defense is pure savagery.
BTW, today's results mean the national champion will once again have a pass defense in the top handful nationally in YPA allowed. I guess it's a fluke again. Maybe someone on the Canes sites can post an adjustment thread downgrading those Alabama numbers based on strength of schedule, all those weak offenses they played. I'll be waiting in eager anticipation. They actually tried that on those boards in recent days. Don't worry...I didn't let them get away with it.
Only Ohio State can line up against Alabama man to man. It's been that way for many years. Alabama has lost occasional games to Johnny Manziel and Deshaun Watson types but only that Buckeye team a few years ago in the semifinal was able to run it down Alabama's throat down the stretch when it mattered.
But JT Little Game Barrett kept Ohio State out of the playoffs in 2015 and again this year, ruining rightful opportunities for Saban vs. Meyer again.
Clemson is not the measuring stick. If Canes fans on this board or elsewhere look at the Clemson game as where we need to aspire, they are outright fools. That is the junior varsity level. Notice what Alabama did to screen passes tonight. It is always hilarious when seasons end and the offensive frustration threads include so many fans calling for more screen passes. Those plays are the height of frailty.
I was sick that Oklahoma blew that game. I wanted to see Alabama bludgeon Oklahoma by 40 points. There was every possibility, if not probability. It would have been a college football version of Hagler vs. Hearns. Once the Sooner glass jaw showed up there would be nothing to keep them upright for 30 minutes, let alone 60. Basic handoffs would have rambled downfield for Alabama. Mayfield would have been under attack and brutalized play after play. It would have been a gorgeous example of traditional football dismantling and exposing the cupcake variety.
I was glad I didn't have a wager on that Georgia/Oklahoma game. Too much contrast. Too many conflicts. So naturally there were extreme runs one way, and extreme runs the other way. It was relaxing to wait and know what my Alabama -1.5 wager would look like. No 21 point switcheroos in a game like that.
The Sooners were pure wimps. The sports media failed to emphasize that. Oklahoma got the ball with 4 minutes remaining up by 7. Perfect situation to put the game away...Heisman quarterback averaging 12 yards per attempt. Yet they were too scared to throw the ball. Three straight running plays. Likewise in the first overtime, needing a touchdown to win. Three straight running plays, some of them gimmicky. Too scared to throw the ball. Even in the second overtime Oklahoma did not risk anything downfield, other than a free play after an obvious offsides infraction.
Mayfield went out like a wimp.
I'm not a Nick Saban fan but he has saved college football in this era. Otherwise everyone would be playing like Tiny Tim tip toeing through the tulips.
Of course, the fact that virtually everyone else is so soft in this spread era enables Saban and Alabama to mostly cruise every season. It's not like the old days when the entire Top 10 would employ physical basic football and emphasize defense first. Road blocks everywhere. Nowadays you've got every fan base wanting to be a fruit loop team. Meanwhile Alabama trots out quarterbacks who don't do much of anything. They don't have to.
I got a kick out of the people a few weeks ago who were asking, "Who did Alabama beat?" As always, strength of schedule is an invention of idiots and applied by morons. If you have to ask who Alabama beat in this era then you need to be sitting in a corner somewhere, with a doctor tapping on your head searching for signs of activity.
