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[College Football] One Last Game that We've Seen 3 Times Already
Nirya
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Lol I had to make a new thread for this.
Ok so we're down to the last game of the season, when the Alabama Crimson Tide and Clemson Tigers meet in the sterile compounds of Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara. Speaking of which...
SE++ BOWL PICK'EMS PART IV: I FINALLY FINISHED ROLLING THAT BOULDER UP THE MOUNTAIN
Responses due by Jan. 7 at 8:00 PM Eastern. Correct pick is worth eight (8) points.
#2 Clemson vs. #1 Alabama (-6.5) - LIVE FROM THE CORPORATE PARK THAT IS LEVI'S STADIUM IN SANTA CLARA, IT'S THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME PRESENTED BY AT&T. Honestly, that sponsorship makes way too much sense, as I can tell you from personal experience that AT&T does not actually have competent service at Levi's Stadium. Anyway, let's try something new for once and give this an honest breakdown.
Alabama has now failed to cover the spread in two straight games. Those were also the two best teams that Alabama has faced this year, and considering Clemson is better than either Oklahoma or Georgia, it makes sense that this is the smallest spread Alabama has faced this year (I'm assuming this to be true, just cause the Georgia spread was like 14 or something. Please send all complaints to ASimPerson if you find any statistical inconsistencies in this writeup). That said, Heisman runner-up Tua Tagovailoa looked healthy in the win over Oklahoma, and they probably would have actually covered had the Tide defense not stopped playing for a good portion of the game. We'll see if the Alabama offense can keep it up against Clemson, as the last time they played an elite defense, things weren't so hot until the latent Georgia sports took over and led the Bulldogs to lose.
Meanwhile, Clemson was able to work out some things against an outmanned Notre Dame team. What do I mean by that? Well, the Tigers lost a few players due to some pesky things like failing a drug test, so the Notre Dame game gave them a chance to get the backups some meaningful playing time in a game they were never going to lose. It's like when you schedule an FCS team like The Citadel or Rutgers, really. It also gave their true freshman QB Trevor Lawrence some valuable playoff experience against what is easily the best team they've played all season (for those who care, the rankings of Clemson's schedule goes Notre Dame, then Pitt, then Texas A&M. The ACC was dire this year). Yes, Alabama is a step up, but the Irish defense ranked better than Alabama's in S&P+ this year, so theoretically that experience will be helpful.
Overall, this game should be good. The problem for casual observers may be that this is the 4th time in 4 years we've seen this matchup. It's hard to diagnose how this is happening beyond both of these schools operating on a completely different level compared to everyone else (and also lots of lots of money legitimately and illegitimately poured into having a successful football program), but it will be interesting to see how the ratings end up this year. And it has been really funny to listen to all the complaints about this game being held in Santa Clara, as the rest of the country suddenly realizes why no one goes to the Pac-12 Championship Game because getting to that stadium fucking sucks.
Go here to enter your choices: https://goo.gl/forms/rlhr8jG63mNouu9o1
Ok so we're down to the last game of the season, when the Alabama Crimson Tide and Clemson Tigers meet in the sterile compounds of Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara. Speaking of which...
SE++ BOWL PICK'EMS PART IV: I FINALLY FINISHED ROLLING THAT BOULDER UP THE MOUNTAIN
Responses due by Jan. 7 at 8:00 PM Eastern. Correct pick is worth eight (8) points.
#2 Clemson vs. #1 Alabama (-6.5) - LIVE FROM THE CORPORATE PARK THAT IS LEVI'S STADIUM IN SANTA CLARA, IT'S THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME PRESENTED BY AT&T. Honestly, that sponsorship makes way too much sense, as I can tell you from personal experience that AT&T does not actually have competent service at Levi's Stadium. Anyway, let's try something new for once and give this an honest breakdown.
Alabama has now failed to cover the spread in two straight games. Those were also the two best teams that Alabama has faced this year, and considering Clemson is better than either Oklahoma or Georgia, it makes sense that this is the smallest spread Alabama has faced this year (I'm assuming this to be true, just cause the Georgia spread was like 14 or something. Please send all complaints to ASimPerson if you find any statistical inconsistencies in this writeup). That said, Heisman runner-up Tua Tagovailoa looked healthy in the win over Oklahoma, and they probably would have actually covered had the Tide defense not stopped playing for a good portion of the game. We'll see if the Alabama offense can keep it up against Clemson, as the last time they played an elite defense, things weren't so hot until the latent Georgia sports took over and led the Bulldogs to lose.
Meanwhile, Clemson was able to work out some things against an outmanned Notre Dame team. What do I mean by that? Well, the Tigers lost a few players due to some pesky things like failing a drug test, so the Notre Dame game gave them a chance to get the backups some meaningful playing time in a game they were never going to lose. It's like when you schedule an FCS team like The Citadel or Rutgers, really. It also gave their true freshman QB Trevor Lawrence some valuable playoff experience against what is easily the best team they've played all season (for those who care, the rankings of Clemson's schedule goes Notre Dame, then Pitt, then Texas A&M. The ACC was dire this year). Yes, Alabama is a step up, but the Irish defense ranked better than Alabama's in S&P+ this year, so theoretically that experience will be helpful.
Overall, this game should be good. The problem for casual observers may be that this is the 4th time in 4 years we've seen this matchup. It's hard to diagnose how this is happening beyond both of these schools operating on a completely different level compared to everyone else (and also lots of lots of money legitimately and illegitimately poured into having a successful football program), but it will be interesting to see how the ratings end up this year. And it has been really funny to listen to all the complaints about this game being held in Santa Clara, as the rest of the country suddenly realizes why no one goes to the Pac-12 Championship Game because getting to that stadium fucking sucks.
Go here to enter your choices: https://goo.gl/forms/rlhr8jG63mNouu9o1
3DS: 2981-5304-3227
+1
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
There should be a third option for "Alternate universe where we got a national title game that is not the same one we've already seen 3 times in a row, also UCF wins by a billion points."
One of the clues was about a college football team.
The answer of course was Rutgers
Also heard rumors that he’s been MIA from USC essentially since ESD, which is also funny in its own way.
3DS: 2981-5304-3227
So far my plan to try to go the national title game is running into people apparently buying tickets because they heard tickets were cheap, causing the prices to go up. Nonetheless, I'm reasonably flexible so I'm sticking to my guns of seeing what's it's like on Monday.
This is me right now
Can I be a Bama fan instead
Anyway, Lawrence is a taaaaad over excited.
He thought he was being clever by picking the kicking game as his weakness in his deal with the devil.
Clemson’s D is nuts
(Bama’s offense is off the charts too so)
Nothing about going for it on 4th and inches is gutsy. Saban just finally figured out that it’s an easy conversion.
3DS: 2981-5304-3227
It was gutsy.
Stop listening to Herbstreit. Any good coach would have gone for it in that spot in a competitive game.
3DS: 2981-5304-3227
I think Clemson’s D ended the season at #1 in defensive S&P+, so it’s not completely surprising to see Bama struggle a bit.
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I agree going for it is the better play, and I don’t think it should be termed “gutsy” but lots of good coaches still don’t go for it there when they should
Like why is Alabama even kicking extra points anyway
Not to belabor the point, but one of my favorite things about Chip Kelly this year was that he looked at this year’s UCLA squad, which really lacked talent because as it turns out Jim Mora is a bad coach, and said “hell yeah we’re gonna go for it on 4th down a lot this year”. They were literally going for it on 4th and 5 from their own 40 in the 1st quarter of games, and it was great.
Bonus, the offense got way more confident in those plays as the season progresses, so by the end of the season they were converting at like an 80% success rate and turning games into shootouts with Wilton Speight at QB.
3DS: 2981-5304-3227
Also did he even sign anyone this year? Not sure it was Mora....
All I will say is it has been very fun trying to manage a host of UCLA fans attempting to fire every defensive coach for some lackluster recruiting.
We did get the best offensive tackle in the West which was nice at least.
3DS: 2981-5304-3227
Jesus.