Clemson Stems Alabama's Tide

Clemson University (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Clemson Tigers are the new national champions of college football, outlasting the Alabama Crimson Tide 35-31 in Tampa, Florida Monday night.  A fourth-quarter comeback for the Tigers was completed by quarterback Deshaun Watson's last-second toss to Hunter Renfrow in the end zone for the winning touchdown.

This is the first national title for the South Carolina-based school since 1981, avenging last year's loss to Alabama in the championship game.  Heck, this is the first time they beat the Tide since 1905.  The Chicago Cubs could relate. 

Alabama, under coach Nick Saban, has been the class of college football this past season and for much of the past decade.  They were going for their fifth national title in eight years, which spans the Bowl Championship Series and the current College Football Playoff.  One wonders if they had been too confident.  Or if they had let assistant Lane Kiffin go to his new coaching job in Florida too soon.

To get here, both teams celebrated New Year's Eve by winning games in the bowls that made up the semifinals.  Alabama beat Washington in the Peach Bowl at Atlanta, while Clemson shut out Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl at Glendale, Arizona.  Both of those games were one-sided, which is one reason why ESPN's TV ratings weren't the greatest.

Just like last year's game between these two teams, this one was also a classic.  But like so many other nationally-televised college football games in recent years, this one took more than four hours to play.  Which is longer than the NFL.  Is it the commercial breaks, the time outs, the replays, stopping the clock with every first down, or is it all of the above?  The NCAA says it's going to take a look at the problem.  But as long as the TV ratings are up, is it really a problem?

So the little town of Clemson, South Carolina is the center of the college football universe for 2017, in a game no one will soon forget.  Until the next Game of the Century.