Was Alabama vs Clemson the best National Championship Game ever?

Was the battle between Alabama and Clemson Monday night the best we’ve ever seen for a title?

What we saw Monday night in Glendale, Arizona was just pure beauty. The Alabama Crimson Tide and the Clemson Tigers gave us a College Football Playoff National Championship Game that we will remember forever. This game had just about everything we could have asked for. It had two Heisman contenders (One of which actually took home the award in Derrick Henry), it had drama, it had a sneaky onside kick in the fourth quarter, it had a 95-yard kick return — this game was one of those reminders as to why we love college football so much, even with all of its flaws.

After was was quite the lackluster bowl season, this is the game that all college football fans deserved.

However, when you watch a game like we saw on Monday night from Alabama and Clemson, that one question always pops into your mind as you’re trying to process what you just consumed on the television: Was this the best college football game that we have ever seen contested for a National Championship?

Look, after you see a contest like Alabama and Clemson put out on Monday night, it’s OK to say that. But the fact of the matter is that it’s still not the best ever.

Nope, to this day, dating all the way back to the beginning of the BCS era in 1998, this still stands alone as the best National Championship Game that we have ever seen.

That 2006 Rose Bowl is still standing the small test of time as the best there has ever been between two teams battling it out for the coveted National Championship. The USC Trojans and Texas Longhorns went wire-to-wire No. 1 and No. 2, both were undefeated, both were in possession of someone who could make a legitimate claim to being the best player in the country — it just gave us everything we could have asked for. We waited literally all year to see it, we knew we were going to see it, and when we did, it was all that the college football world could have asked for and more.

It’s going to take a special set of circumstances for a National Championship Game to lay claim to being better than what we saw in Pasadena in 2006. Will it happen some day? It probably will, but for now, it is at the top of the mountain comfortably.

But still, despite this fact, Alabama vs Clemson on Monday night will always hold a special place in our hearts for what they gave us on the field Monday night with the ultimate college football prize on the line. We all, as fans, owe a huge thank you to both programs.