In last season’s College Football Playoff title game, Clemson absolutely dominated Alabama en route to a 44-16 victory.

However, if they were to hypothetically meet again in Week 1 of the 2019 season, college football handicapper Danny Sheridan would still favor the Crimson Tide.

In a conversation with AL.com, Sheridan said there’s no way you could have Alabama as an underdog when the Tide are fresh entering a season:

“Alabama would be a 3-point favorite if they played in Week 1. I know people say, ‘Well, don’t you know Clemson beat Alabama? No, I didn’t know that. Of course, I know that,” Sheridan said sarcastically. “It has nothing to do with it. Alabama’s been an underdog one time since 2009 or something. They were an underdog at Georgia and beat them 38-10 (in 2015). …

“I would make Alabama no more than 3, maybe 2.5-point favorite, but you have to favor Alabama. At the end of the season, that’s a different story. I don’t know how they will do during the course of a season. To start the year, Alabama doesn’t have to butt heads with the SEC West.”

That is certainly some interesting reasoning, and it does make sense that Alabama and Clemson in Week 1 is much different than the same game nearly five months later.

Unfortunately, we won’t actually get to see the title rematch in Week 1, so this is all just hypothetical.