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One Second, One Winner

Two teams were determined to go home with the grand prize on Monday night. On one side, the Alabama Crimson Tide were trying to maintain their dominance over Clemson after beating them in the National Championship last year. On the other side, the Clemson Tigers were hunting for revenge. In back to back years, these two teams proved to be the top two college football teams in the nation. Once again, Alabama entered as the favored team after their win last year. Based on a Twitter poll by HHLSports, sixty-eight percent of twenty-two voters believed that Alabama was going to reign victorious.

In 2015, Alabama came out on top in an offensive brawl, 45-40. Tigers Quarterback, Deshaun Watson, came in third place for the Heisman Trophy voting. Not much has changed in a year. These two teams faced each other once again in the 2016 National Championship. Clemson, coming off a 11-1 season, while Alabama was undefeated 12-0.

The game plan for each team was simple. For Alabama, don’t let Deshaun Watson get comfortable throwing the football. Watson has had success throwing to Wide Receiver Mike Williams. Williams led the Tigers in receiving yards and receiving touchdowns this past season. Stopping the connection between these two players would force Watson to throw to receivers he is not as comfortable throwing to. For Clemson, their X-Factor was to prevent Watson from turning the ball over. He has been known to do that over the course of this year. However, by the end of the game, Watson had four touchdowns and zero turnovers. That was one of, if not the, key factor to Clemson’s 35-31 victory.

Watson outplayed Freshman Quarterback Jalen Hurts with three touchdowns, 420 yards, and a pass completion percentage of 64%. Hurts only had one touchdown, 131 yards, and a pass completion percentage of 42%. Four of Clemson’s receivers had over ninety yards receiving. Watson not only passed effectively, but was able to mix completions to different receivers to keep the defense off balance. Those four receivers were Jordan Leggett, Mike Williams, Deon Cain, and Hunter Renfrow.

On the ground, Alabama had the advantage. Freshman Bo Scarbrough ran for two touchdowns and ninety-three yards in only two and a half quarters. Scarbrough left the game midway through the third quarter with a broken leg and did not return. Had Scarbrough played the entire game, the outcome of this game could have resulted in a second straight Alabama win. For Clemson, Wayne Gallman only had forty-six yards for one touchdown.

In the end, the Clemson Tigers were crowned champions when Hunter Renfrow caught the go-ahead-touchdown with one second remaining. Hope was diminishing from every Clemson fan in the stadium when they were at the twelve-yard line with six seconds left. With the help of ‘Bama’s DB, Anthony Averett, Clemson fans saw light at the end of the tunnel. A ten-yard holding penalty was called on Averett which moved Clemson’s offense to the two-yard line, still with only six seconds left. The Tigers had just one shot at redemption against the team that defeated them last year. As Watson snapped the ball and rolled out right, he passed to the open WR Renfrow for the go-ahead-touchdown with one second left. Clemson burned their last second on a squib kick, as to prevent Alabama from returning the kick for a touchdown.

This was the first time Clemson has defeated Alabama since 1905, and the first time they won the National Championship since 1981. In Watson’s senior year of high school he tweeted, “If I get a chance to play in a national championship game, Imma go ham.” Well, Watson wasn’t able to play in one championship game…but two.

Entering halftime Alabama was ahead 17-7. By that point, ESPN predicted that Alabama had a 77.4% chance of winning. Then, entering the fourth quarter, Alabama was still ahead by a score of 24-14. In school history, Alabama was 94-0 when leading by ten or more entering the fourth quarter. Despite the doubts and criticism, Clemson outscored ‘Bama 21-7 in the fourth quarter which carved their way to victory and a page in the history books.

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Chris is the play-by-play commentator and a sports writer for Hawk Headlines. He is a member of the Class of 2017 and has spent a full semester at Hawk Headlines.

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