It looked like we were all headed for another Alabama-Clemson matchup in the College Football Playoff National Championship — a saga that perhaps only “Star Wars” can rival in episodic volume. But Ohio State found Clemson’s exhaust port numerous times in the Sugar Bowl semifinal to the tune of a 49-28 win, giving the Tigers […]
On its opening drive of the college football season, the Alabama Crimson Tide offense sputtered to a three-and-out, with quarterback Mac Jones misfiring twice. But that failure wasn’t a harbinger of things to come: Jones and the Tide responded with three consecutive touchdown drives in a blowout win over Missouri. That exact cadence — a […]
There’s perhaps nothing more alluring in sports than the notion of unpredictability, that what you’re witnessing isn’t scripted, that anything could happen. George Mason. Leicester City. Buster Douglas. These narratives are the reason we keep coming back year after year. Recently, though, it seems like the improbable has taken a back seat to the foreseeable […]
One year ago, the Oklahoma Sooners fielded the worst defense to ever qualify for the College Football Playoff. Under first-year head coach Lincoln Riley, and behind Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Baker Mayfield, Oklahoma took a 17-point lead on Georgia, the eventual national runner-up, before losing in the Rose Bowl semifinal. Twelve months later, Riley has another […]
The engine powering college football’s pre-eminent outfit over the past decade has typically been a blue chip-laden, pressure-oriented, versatile defense. In Tuscaloosa, where Nick Saban has helmed the Alabama Crimson Tide since 2007, that engine has only gained steam in recent years. The winner of 87.2 percent of its games and five national titles since […]