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The person who tells you recruiting doesn’t matter didn’t watch Alabama win its fourth national title in seven years Monday night.
The person who tells you stars don’t matter didn’t watch Alabama hold off a very good Clemson team with the best player in the country (yeah, I said it) at quarterback.
When Clemson had a refreshed and healthy first team they were Alabama’s equal for the most part. But when Nick Saban could freely rotate a second team defense that includes five-star prospects Rashaan Evans and Jonathan Allen, the balance of the game changed.
And when one of the second-team defensive linemen wasn’t getting the job done, Da’Shawn Hand moved up from the third team. Hand was rated as the second-best defensive player in the nation in the class of 2014 (Texas A&M’s Myles Garrett was No. 1) and he has to fight to see the field.
Clemson was legitimate. Don’t believe otherwise. This wasn’t an LSU team trying to win with a quarterback who couldn’t throw a forward pass or a Notre Dame team completely unprepared for the moment.
The Tigers wanted this game. They wanted Alabama. They didn’t want to deal with any “what if” questions. It was going to be No. 1 vs. No. 2 with everything on the line.
But Clemson had a slimmer margin of error. The Tigers couldn’t afford injuries to their top guys. Mackensie Alexander needed to be 100 percent, but he could only go for a quarter and a half before his hamstring gave way. Shaq Lawson had to be used strategically because he couldn’t play a normal rotation of snaps on his sprained MCL.
Then Artavis Scott got nicked up. And Wayne Gallman. And Ben Boulware. And they had to play through their injuries. The talent behind them wasn’t as good and wouldn’t hold up in this game. If Dabo Swinney said Clemson’s victory over Notre Dame earlier in the season was about “bringing your own guts,” on Monday the Tigers needed their own guts and then an extra set on loan from others to survive.
You can put 12 to 15 of the top programs in the nation together and the top 30 to 35 players on the roster will be about equal across the board. It’s the next 50 guys on scholarship that separate the good teams from the championship ones.
That’s where Alabama wins. Many of its next 50 guys on scholarship are elite football players.
Take Kenyan Drake for example. He would be a superstar at many other programs, but at Alabama he has to make his difference on special teams and as a third-down back. So in the fourth quarter as Clemson’s coverage team is searching for a second wind, Drake takes a kickoff to the house.
Alabama scored 21 points in the first three quarters and 24 points in the fourth. They had the fresher legs. They had the talent advantage. Clemson was forced to rely on guys playing at 50-60 percent health while Alabama could control and change the speed of the game with fresh second-team players who provided little if any drop off in talent.
That’s why the Tide are champions. They had the fresh legs and more healthy bodies. They had five-star backups to spell five-star starters when needed. And they had O.J. Howard (the nation’s top-rated tight end in 2013) playing the game of his life.
It was too much for Clemson. It would have been too much for anyone.
Corey Long is a freelance writer for SaturdayDownSouth.com. Follow Corey on Twitter @CoreyLong.
