“If you will it, it is no dream.” — Theodore Herzl (also Walter in The Big Lebowski)

“If we can do it, anybody can do it.” — Dabo Swinney

Yes, that sound of deflation around the middle of the second quarter in the National Championship Game might have been the sound of the pride of the SEC being popped like a giant balloon by a Clemson thorn. But after several days of reflection, Clemson’s 44-16 butt-whipping of Alabama actually was a good thing for the SEC.

Wait, what?

OK, one caveat. If you’re an Alabama fan, you’re probably thinking it was good for you in a “the bully who punched your nose was building your character” kind of way. Obviously, your life would be better today if the college football dynasty of the 21st century was still rolling. (And as a quick aside, spare me the “collapse of Alabama” narrative stuff. They’ll be back. Next year.)

But if you’re a fan of one of the SEC’s other 13 teams, Clemson’s beating of Alabama was a good thing.

First, it’s good for the sport as a whole. You know who liked a David vs. Goliath environment in the sport where the distribution of talent is the most uneven? Not the fans of David. So much of the noise for an 8- or 16- or 32-team Playoff or whatever alternate format is being promoted comes from the fact that when national titles are won and lost, the college football narrative has gotten stale.

Everybody loves the Big Dance metaphor. People don’t turn in to the Big Dance to watch Duke and Kansas and Kentucky roll. They turn in to see UMBC beat Virginia, or some team from a league you never heard of knock off Duke. Or Loyola of Chicago make a run to the Final Four. College football isn’t going to a 64-team field, and it wouldn’t yield many upsets if it did.

Alabama football has been the closest thing to UCLA basketball in the 1960s and 1970s that the current transfer, eligibility, and NFL rules will allow. And John Wooden winning all those rings … well, it was boring. Most fans want Villanova over Georgetown on the hardwood, and Boise State trick-playing Oklahoma to death on the gridiron. If the current CFP can’t really deliver that, it did at least yield a massive machine being beaten by a slightly less massive machine.

Secondly, Alabama had become the glass ceiling that there was no point in butting your team’s head against. I spent most of this football season covering Kentucky. The Kentucky that won 10 games and had its best season in four decades. You might remember that at one point, the East championship rested on UGA’s visit to Lexington. In the craziness of that week, my wife, still a relative newcomer to the insanity of college football, had asked me what a win would mean. Division title aside, what did it mean? Well, it meant getting Alabama in Atlanta. And I knew what that meant.

“If Kentucky played Georgia 10 times, they’d win once. Maybe twice,” I told her. “If Kentucky played Alabama a hundred times, I don’t think they’d win once.”

Clemson changed that. No, I don’t think Kentucky could take down Alabama in a game that mattered … but Kentucky no longer would be absolved for taking the mindset that Alabama was the unbeatable juggernaut and so there was no real point in wasting energy and resources on trying to do something impossible.

I don’t foresee a day when Alabama just becomes another SEC team. Not as long as Nick Saban is in Tuscaloosa. But I do foresee a day when a lot more teams are pulling out game film from not-so-distant Ole Miss or A&M wins over Alabama, trying to think creatively, trying to showcase their best players in a way that might just make the Tide a little bit uncomfortable. And that kind of thinking will make the entire league better.

And finally, yes, Clemson being Alabama will ultimately make Alabama better.

Rocky needed Drago, the Lakers needed the Celtics, the Yankees needed the Red Sox. For once, Alabama will go into the fall without the biggest national target on its back. Having spent the past few years as the hunted, the Tide can feel free to go into the fall as the hunter, in at least one matchup. Let the Buckeyes and the Sooners ponder how to stop Trevor instead of Tua. Nick Saban might feel like an elephant climbed off his back.

Around the SEC, there might have been a few grimaces Monday night as the Tide went down. But ultimately, the league will go up because of it. The King (Alabama) is (very temporarily) dead. Long live the King (SEC).