When you come into a National Semi Final
Championship game, there are expectations, high expectations that you want for
your team, and for your fans, then you enter a game undefeated, and ranked 3rd
in the Nation, and you have an opportunity to showcase your team, and come up
on the short end.
That’s what happened to Notre Dame in the 83rd
Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic in Arlington, Texas, against the number 2 ranked
Clemson Tigers. This will be Clemson’s 3rd trip to the National Championship
and they will face off with their arch nemesis, Alabama for the rubber match—Clemson
has been on this stage before and once again their task will not be an easy
one—since everyone says that “all roads to the championship goes through BAMA!”
For this game, this was one that Clemson showed that
they not only belonged on this stage but owned this stage. They came out and
found in the first 8 minutes that Notre Dame came to fight, were able to go toe
to toe with them, tying the score at 3 a
piece, and then Clemson opened the flood gates and scored 27 unanswered points,
and that’s all it took for them to make their trip to the dance one more time.
What becomes of Notre Dame, is that the pollsters
might have gotten it wrong. Well in some minds that is, the Fightin Irish just
didn’t have enough in the tank to keep up with the Tigers, and fell to them in
a way that most experts will say, might cost them next year, no matter what
their record will be.
Undefeated might seem to be a lofty goal, and might
get you a shot in the top four! HOWEVER, what really matters is that, you
should really be in a conference, and as long as Notre Dame plays as an
independent, they will have problems in the future.
Their basketball team, plays in the Big East
conference, and does well there, but their football team, they have to pick and
chose their opponents and book them years in advanced. They have stopped their
rivalry with Michigan, but kept theirs with USC. They pick up teams like both Army
and Navy, they even play Syracuse, but that’s still not enough umph to push
them, into the top four for the up coming years.
There are those who think that Georgia, even though
they lost to the Crimson Tide in the SEC Championship game, should have been
the fourth team in the standings, but because they did lose, and Oklahoma beat
Texas in their BIG XII Championship, they were in the driver’s seat to be
number four in the country.
Ok so lets look how this all shook out. Clemson beat
Notre Dame and Alabama defeated Oklahoma, that left Georgia to play Texas in
the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, and the results were….. TEXAS number 15 in the
country defeated Georgia 28-14, and there are some who are saying that this
game catapulted Texas into the national spot light, and look for them to make
some serious noise in the next few years.
For now however, the National Championship game will
have a rematch once again between Clemson and Alabama, that has seen each team
take a National title from each! For Dabo Sweeny and his Tigers, they will have
something to prove, and for Nick Saban and his Crimson Tide, they will have to
show the world that the Dynasty that they have in Alabama is real, and might
just ROLL TIDE all over the Tigers.
But on the night that this all takes place, the
TIGERS will once again show that they had the right game plan to take down Nick
Saban and his Crimson Tide!
Congratulations to Clemson, National Champions for
2018!
Just a thought!
