It's no secret Alabama is the odds-on favorite to win the national championship. Still, there are three more games, and three other teams with something to prove, that will go towards deciding if the Crimson Tide truly are college football's best team.
Of those three teams, Clemson might be the most dangerous.
The Tigers are loaded with future NFL talent. They're well-coached. And they're hitting their stride at the right time. Above all, despite the inconsistent play throughout most of the season, this team hasn't lost its confidence. And a confident team, especially when mixed with this kind of talent, is a dangerous team.
There are questions Clemson must answer -- every team has them -- but this is a team that knows how to win and won't be fazed by the bright lights of the playoff. It's been here before, but now it has the added chip on its shoulder of wanting to prove it can do this year what it couldn't to last year: Win it all.
Here's why the Tigers will do it ...
1. Pros, pros, pros: Recruiting rankings matter when it comes to winning a national championship. Go ahead, take a look at the last half dozen national title winners and say stars don't matter. They do. But so does turning those stars into actual stars. Every team in the playoff has at least a few studs who will be playing in the NFL, but Clemson has a ton of them on both sides of the ball.
Deshaun Watson is projected to be a first-round selection at quarterback, while receiver Mike Williams could be the first wideout taken in the 2017 NFL Draft. Fellow receiver Artavis Scott is also considered a potential second-day selection. Running back Wayne Gallman, tight end Jordan Leggett and offensive lineman Tyrone Crowder are just three more names projected to go high in this year's draft.
That's just on offense. Defensive lineman Carlos Watkins and cornerback Cordrea Tankersley are also projected by some to go somewhere in either the first or second rounds. Potentially, you could be talking about close to 10 players on this team being drafted, many in the first two days. None of this even counting the non-draft eligible players who will be playing on Sundays eventually, too.
Clemson doesn't just have NFL-caliber talent: It has an abundance of it in the right spots.
2. The Tigers, should they get the opportunity, match up well against Alabama: This isn't even about last year's national championship appearance vs. the Crimson Tide. Different year, different teams. But if Clemson advances past Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl semifinal, and Alabama beats Washington like many expect, the Tigers match up well against the overwhelming favorite.
Remember all those future pros on offense mentioned earlier? They'll go against an Alabama pass defense that is susceptible to big plays. The Tide rank first in the SEC in yards per attempt allowed but are average at best in giving up explosive plays of at least 20 yards through the air. Clemson's passing attack features a quarterback with good ball placement ability throwing to a variety of downfield weapons.
Clemson also has the defensive line to get after Alabama's freshman quarterback Jalen Hurts. Seven different defensive linemen have produced multiple sacks, and the Tigers do as good a job as any team as getting pressure with just its front four. Hurts had an exceptional freshman year, but he's still prone to mistakes when facing pressure from Power Five competition. And while Alabama's receiving group is explosive, it's not the tallest (again, tight end O.J. Howard may be the go-to guy). Clemson doesn't have the same size in its secondary it had a year ago, either, but it does have a rangy corner in Tankersley who won't be put in a bad size matchup against ArDarius Stewart or Calvin Ridley.
There aren't many weaknesses in Alabama's game, but Clemson has at least a couple of advantages where it can exploit those weaknesses.
3. Thanks to Pitt, Clemson might be playing its best football now: Sometimes, a loss is what's needed to awaken a giant from its slumber. Clemson has been an enigma for much of the season. There's world-class talent pretty much everywhere, and yet this team has looked average in more than a few games this season -- even though it has a handful of good-to-great wins.
However, the 43-42 loss to Pitt in mid-November might have been the wake up call this team needed. Since that loss, Clemson has posted convincing wins against Wake Forest and South Carolina -- not great competition, but not terrible, either -- and found its big-play ability in the ACC Championship Game win against Virginia Tech. Most importantly, Clemson has limited the turnovers. The Tigers lost just three turnovers post-Pitt and never had more than one per game. Compare that to six multi-turnover efforts in the first 10 games.
Clemson needs to keep improving on the turnovers against Ohio State and potentially Alabama. No two teams in college football have been better at converting those directly into points. But the Tigers have quietly been better about holding on to the ball over the past month.
