Tide Turner: Gutsy play helps ‘Bama get past Clemson, 45-40

The Tigers battled to the finish in a wild second half that featured a combined 40 points.

The pivotal moment in Alabama’s national championship win on Monday night came when the Crimson Tide tried an audacious pop-up onside kick with the game tied in the fourth quarter.

But what a thriller it was in the desert. The Heisman finalist racked up 478 yards of total offense (405 passing, 73 rushing), while completing 30 of 47 passes and throwing for four touchdowns.

“The guy, he’s special”, Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said.

He said, “The score of the game is being plastered all over social media”. Duffy Daugherty’s Michigan State team also was unbeaten and ranked No. 2.

Yes, the 2015 football season will truly be one to remember for Clemson fans.

While the College Football Playoff makes reaching the National Championship game harder the Tigers have set themselves up well for future success and there’s no reason not to think they could make it back to the game’s biggest stage in 2016. “I’m incredibly proud of our team”. This was Clemson’s first shot at a national title since 1981, and the ACC’s second appearance in a title game in three years.

“There’s a lot of pride”, Watson said. “It won’t be 34 years before we’re going to be back, I promise you that”. “He took some hits in a very physical game”.

This is why when Alabama found itself playing Clemson in the title game, the Tide were favored by nearly a touchdown.

Clemson led 24-21 entering the fourth quarter after Alabama tight end O.J. Howard caught a 53-yard touchdown pass, which was answered by a Greg Huegel field goal and a Wayne Gallman 1-yard touchdown run.

Watson had two scoring passes to Hunter Renfrow in the opening half, the first coming as he sweetly dropped the ball into his receiver’s arms between two Alabama defenders.

“At the end of the day I wanted the W”, he said. “But we gave it all we had and my boys up front, we did what we had to do”. Derrick Henry plunged into the end zone for his third touchdown of the game to make it 45-33 with 1:07 left.

Griffith popped it up, Marlon Humphrey caught it on the fly and that turned the game completely in Alabama’s favor. “He’s a great coach, he’s a great mentor and he always leads us in the right direction”.

Key play: O.J. Howard’s 57-yard touchdown catch to give Alabama the lead. Not only did special teams turn around the game with the onside kick, Kenyan Drake put the hammer down with a 95-yard kickoff return for a 38-27 lead with 7:31 left.

That was just enough breathing room against Watson, who drove Clemson down the field and hit Artavis Scott for a 15-yard touchdown with 4:40 remaining to pull within 38-33. But Watson’s run on the two-point conversion try failed, leaving Clemson five points down.

As gamblers know too well, that TD meant the Tigers, while not winning, beat the spread. We weren’t doing a great job of getting them stopped. This will be a match, or mismatch, between one of the most relentlessly self-sustaining football programs in recent memory against a Trojans team that will bring a new quarterback, two new coordinators, and a defensive line that will need some major protein-shake intake to look like it belongs on the same field.

On the interview dais, a few minutes after the greatest game of his career coincided with its greatest disappointment, a reporter asked where Watson needed to improve most.

Well, so far, everybody except Alabama.