This is the matchup we’ve all been waiting for.

Alabama will square off versus Clemson for the second-straight season in the College Football Playoff Championship Game.

The Crimson Tide narrowly defeated the Tigers a year ago by a score of 45-40. It was an exciting, back-and-forth affair with plenty of fireworks.

Heading into this game, Clemson would love nothing more than to even the proverbial Championship series with a victory. Via AL.com, head coach Dabo Swinney and QB Deshaun Watson spoke about the immense challenge at hand against the best team in the country.

Swinney relayed what it will take to be successful against Nick Saban’s team:

“It’s all about the little things in games like this. If you go back to last year’s game, it came down to some very basic things. It really wasn’t the big things. We had the lead in the fourth quarter, first down on the plus-40 and we fumbled the exchange. Basic, basic things.”

During last year’s contest, Watson threw for 405 yards and four touchdowns. With some familiarity, expect Alabama to make the requisite adjustments in order to make things more difficult for the Heisman finalist.

Watson apparently felt as if Clemson missed out on multiple opportunities, and suffered from self-inflicted wounds:

“It’s a whole new year and a whole new team so we wanted to focus on our team. At the same time, it was always in the back of our head that it’s going to take a little extra.

We did pretty good. We played hard. They played hard too. We both made plays. We both made mistakes. We feel like we should have won the game but at the end, they won the game and they made the most plays and deserved it.”