f we played them again I would not be able to call us favorites.
If Alabama magically got healthy and played them again I would call them favorites. I think three big things had a heavy impact on the outcome of that game (not counting regular season injuries).
A: Sark calling his first game. You couldn't expect there to be no issues at all, and when there were a few mistakes you had to wonder if that played any role at all.
B: Jalen Hurts is still a true freshman. He's constantly learning, but he was in over his head sometimes. I take his ability to learn over Clemson's ability to adjust though.
C: Bo's injury. Not trying to do a Colt thing, because I'd put this as C on the list (and I'm not even talking about officiating), but that took the one working offensive weapon out of the game. You take Mike Williams out at the end of that game, no way Clemson wins and on the other hand I think stopping Alabama with Bo was a lot more difficult.
So, Clemson is a great team, but I really feel like Alabama was dealing with more adversity. Unfortunately some people want to ignore that and just pretend Alabama somehow just did terrible. That's not it at all, anyone who thought a guy calling his first game at Alabama, with a true freshman QB, against a top 10 defense wasn't going to have issues... is just really not very realistic.
Ok, ok, I'm going to do D. I have to.
D: Alabama had 9 penalties for 82 yards. Clemson had 3 penalties for 35 yards. There's no way anyone could watch that game and make a legitimate claim that Clemson only had 3 penalties, this has happened all year though... so yeah you play the game over and this happens again most likely.
