Dabo Swinney got lucky : Devastating Hot Take
By Mark Carman
Congratulations to Clemson and their entertaining head coach Dabo Swinney for winning the national championship. The Tigers are a worthy champion making the big plays down the stretch to beat Alabama in a memorable title game. Swinney could have cost his school a championship calling for an onside kick with one second left.
College football rules state that the ball is dead and no time will run off the clock if the player’s knee is down, which is exactly what happened on the last play. Clemson recovered the onside kick and had to execute one last snap before time expired. Lets say for arguments sake, that Clemson didn’t recover and Alabama did.
The Crimson Tide would have had a shot at the end zone with a Hail Mary from 40-49 yards which are successful roughly 3 percent of the time. Why would Swinney take that chance when you could squib kick the ball down to the 30 and cover the play? Alabama would not have been able to take a knee and the Tigers could gain up on any would be ball carrier.
Swinney’s clock management down the stretch was also curious as the Tigers seemed to be playing for a field goal rather than the game winning touchdown they ended up with. Why run nearly 30 key seconds off the clock when there was a minute to go? It worked out because Deshaun Watson was great but again, curious decision making.
Swinney nearly blew a chance at the championship back in September when he chose to go for it on fourth down versus Auburn rather than kicking a field goal that would have put the Tigers up nine. It ended up working out, but Auburn had two Hail Mary passes that could have ended the Tigers championship hopes early.
Congrats to Clemson and Dabo. The players won it on the field despite some head scratching coaching decisions along the way.