How did Clemson beat Alabama? They may have just worn them out.
Clemson pulled off a huge upset Monday night when it mounted a thrilling come-from-behind victory over Alabama in the College Football Playoff National Championship. The Tigers snapped Alabama’s 26-game winning streak dating back to 2015 and gave Clemson its first national title since 1981.
“Eight years ago, my goal was to put Clemson back on the top,” Coach Dabo Swinney said. “And tonight, that’s a reality.”
As the scoring indicates, the story of the game focuses on the second half. After holding Clemson to 14 points through three quarters, Alabama allowed 21 points during the fourth quarter, including two touchdowns during the final four minutes and 38 seconds. Leading up to the championship game, Alabama’s defense gave up just 32 fourth-quarter points this season. It was also the first time an Alabama team coached by Nick Saban had lost a double-digit lead entering the fourth quarter — they were 97-0 before that.
In a season that was defined by the Tide’s smothering defense, Clemson forced Alabama into a shootout in the second half. How were the Tigers able to score so frequently in the fourth quarter? One reason appears to be that they just plain tired out the Tide with their up-tempo offense, combined with the inability of Alabama’s offense to eat up the clock.
Alabama’s defense hadn’t faced more than 84 plays all season (at Arkansas in October) and only ran 66 plays on offense, but Clemson was able to grind down the Tide with 99 plays, 54 of which came in the final two quarters. It was only the second time in the Saban era in which Alabama faced 90 or more plays on defense (Auburn, 2014).
It was evident the up-tempo attack was taking its toll on Alabama’s defense, particularly during what became a very taxing second half for the Tide. The Tigers finished with 511 yards of total offense, 308 of that coming during the second half. Clemson’s offense averaged 5.7 yards per play in the second half after only 4.5 yards per play in the first half. The Tigers also picked up more than twice as many first downs from one half (10) to the other (21) and converted 7 of 18 (39 percent) third-downs the entire game.
Alabama, by comparison, converted just two of its 15 third-down opportunities, the worst conversion rate of the season (previous low was 28.6 percent against Washington) and well below the Tide’s season average of 46.1 percent up until the final game of the season.
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That put the Alabama defense on the field more often than its normal workload. Only twice in the whole second half did the Tide sustain an offensive drive for more than 90 seconds of game time. In all, Alabama ran just 30 second-half plays on offense, while its defense faced nearly a full game’s worth of snaps (just nine fewer than the Tide’s season average on defense) in a single half.
Clemson pushed the pace all night, and it paid off with a national championship.
“We came up a little short last year. But tonight, at the top of the mountain that Clemson flag is flying. This has been the most incredible team I’ve ever been around,” Swinney said.
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