Swinney, Saban trade compliments in preparation for title game

To have the opportunity to be in my first national championship game as a coach, and it comes against Alabama, I just have to smile at God on that one. “They’ve got a family of trophies in Tuscaloosa”. Should Alabama control the ball like that next Monday night, Clemson will have a hard time keeping pace.

Asked about becoming an Alabama fan before leaving SC for Arizona, site of the showdown, Swinney said “you leave the hospital, they stamp your birth certificate Alabama or Auburn”. “This team, this program has become incredibly consistent”. In the semifinal against Michigan State, the Spartans managed just 29 rushing yards, an average of just 1.1 yards per carry. The junior sprained his left knee in the first quarter of Clemson’s 37-17 victory against Oklahoma on Thursday and hardly played the rest of the game.

Clemson Tigers head football coach Dabo Swinney cut his teeth on the collegiate game in Alabama, playing wide receiver for the Crimson Tide during its 1992 national championship season. This week it’s for the National Championship—and it is against Alabama. “How do you handle being able to experience something a lot of other people may not be able to?”, Davis said.

CBS Sports college football writers Tom Fornelli, Chip Patterson and Robby Kalland each weigh in with their hottest topic entering Monday’s big game. 9 Clemson to give head coach Nick Saban his first win against a top-10 opponent during his tenure at Alabama. They’re deep with talent, rotating future National Football League players across the board, and the unit as a whole is the best in the nation against the run and getting after the quarterback. When he was 10, Swinney met Frank Howard, a friend of Bryant’s and an Alabama alum who served as a coach and administrator at Clemson for 40 years.

The Tigers, though, are using to being doubted. Saban said he felt the team didn’t play “tired” against Michigan State and had Tuesday off in preparation for Clemson.

Tigers linebacker Ben Boulware said he would not be surprised to see a change in the rule.

“This is certainly going to be the most challenging game we’ve had to this point”, Tide coach Nick Saban said. “It really doesn’t matter if nobody’s with us, everybody’s against us”.

In a college football top tier comprising 128 teams and about 1,280 flaws, Clemson (14-0) and Alabama (13-1) have spent at least the last two months seeming the least flawed, week by week, until they wound up pretty compellingly close to flawless.

If the Tide can make Watson one-dimensional, expect another blowout win.

In Pelham, a Birmingham bedroom community of about 23,000 people at the southern end of the Appalachian foothills, Swinney has a reputation as a faithful, determined guy who married his high school sweetheart and hasn’t forgotten the folks back home.

While Boyd’s opinion might be biased, the Tigers have reason to feel good about themselves. In their win over LSU earlier this year, he jumped over a Tigers lineman and blocked an extra point. Since the Crimson Tide is not in session, there are no limits to the amount of time that the team can spend together on the practice field or in meetings.

Clemson is 4-0 against the spread in their last four bowl games, 4-1 against the spread against a team with a winning record, and 5-2 against the spread in their last seven non-conference games. But let me say this: “That’s ancient history compared to the kind of team Clemson has now and the kind of team we’re going to play against in this game”. Viewers can watch the game on ESPN at 6 p.m. Central time.