Reaching the summit: How Clemson overtook Alabama as king of college football

Has Clemson replaced Alabama as the king of College Football? It certainly seems so as we head into the 2019 College Football Playoff.

Getting to the top of the mountain is hard. Staying there is even harder. But Clemson has managed to make it look easy as the new kings of the college football mountain.

The 2019 College Football Playoff has a couple of familiar faces, but there’s one missing in terms of the usual suspects: The Alabama Crimson Tide.

Coming into this season, Alabama was attempting to shake-off an embarrassing 44-16 thrashing from Clemson in the National Championship back in January. As a result, the Crimson Tide went into the year with a chip on their shoulder as they began what many analysts and fans coined as “The Revenge Tour.”

Of course, there was plenty of reason to think that the pendulum would swing back in favor of the Crimson Tide this time around. After all, we’ve seen Clemson and Alabama match up in three National Championships and one CFB Playoff semifinal in the past four seasons. The result? A dead-even split.

The Tigers and Tide have traded National Championships for the last four seasons and it seemed as if nothing could get in the way of that streak continuing. Except, when it came time to play the games in 2019, it was Clemson that seemed nearly invincible and it was Alabama that showed weaknesses.

Alabama, which had appeared nearly unbeatable for the last decade, had cracks in its armor. The Crimson Tide struggled defensively against mediocre offenses and that “revenge tour” came to a swift halt after Bama gave up 46 points at home to SEC West foe LSU followed by a loss to in-state rival Auburn just three weeks later.

There used to be a saying when College Football fans from around the country talked about the Alabama Crimson Tide and it went like this: If they have one five-star go down, they’ve got two other five-stars to take his place.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case when Tua Tagovailoa went down with a devastating injury. The Alabama program of the past would’ve plugged in another quarterback and seemingly never missed a beat. Instead, this Crimson Tide team faltered down the stretch.

While Alabama takes its talents down to the Citrus Bowl to play the No. 14-Michigan Wolverines, Clemson will continue its streak of five-straight College Football Playoff appearances, tying the Crimson Tide for the most playoff appearances in College Football history.

As we look out at the landscape of College Football, there looks to be a shift in the tides, and it’s breaking in Clemson’s favor.

The Tigers have now won five-straight ACC Championships, made five-straight College Football Playoff appearances, competed in four of the last five National Championships and won two of the last three National Titles. Clemson is head-and-shoulders ahead of any program in the ACC and the Tigers are showing more depth and talent than we’ve ever seen before in Swinney’s tenure.

Dabo Swinney has beaten Alabama, Notre Dame, Oklahoma and Ohio State, many with relative ease in the College Football Playoff, and it doesn’t seem as if the Tigers will be going anywhere any time soon.

As a matter of fact, many around the nation expected Clemson to drop out of the national landscape once Deshaun Watson declared for the NFL Draft. Little did they know that the Tigers would get the No. 1 quarterback in the nation in the 2018 class, a guy by the name of Trevor Lawrence.

Lawrence, who is just a sophomore and still has one more year before moving on to the NFL, has already made his mark on college football, but it won’t end with him either.

Clemson has the nation’s No. 1 quarterback in the 2020 class committed in five-star DJ Uiagalelei to take over once Lawrence leaves for the NFL as the presumed No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. If that weren’t enough, Clemson is also recruiting at the highest level it has in Dabo Swinney’s tenure and it’s absolutely scary to think what the Tigers could be doing in the future.

You see, Clemson was already winning national championships and competing for playoff berths, despite the fact that the Tigers had averaged having just the No. 10 recruiting class in the nation over the most recent five-year span.

That’s right.

Though Clemson was out-recruited by the likes of Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, LSU, USC, Florida State and Auburn during the last half-decade, the Tigers were still winning at the highest clip in the nation.

Can you imagine what Dabo Swinney is going to be able to do now that the Tigers are out-recruiting the perennial bluebloods of College Football?

Swinney hasn’t just built this Clemson football program for short-term success. He has constructed it from top-to-bottom over the course of several years and it’s going to take an absolute monster to come and knock the Tigers off.

One of the key areas of differences between Swinney and Saban is the culture built by the two coaches. While Saban built a winning culture, Swinney promoted a culture with the phrase ‘best is the standard.’ As a result of his ability to be a successful motivator and leader, he’s been able to keep a staff in place better than Alabama ever has.

Even when coaches leave, such as Jeff Scott taking the job at USF, Swinney is promoting from within and giving coaches who have been trained in the Clemson football program opportunities to make a name for themselves. Honestly, Scott is a perfect example of that.

Clemson is rising to levels once thought to be unattainable and there’s nothing in the way of the Tigers continuing to reach playoff after playoff and compete for National Titles year-in and year-out, and there just isn’t room for two at the top.

Kingdoms aren’t built in a day and kingdoms don’t crumble in a day.

Alabama is still recruiting at a high level and will be a factor in the near future, but the Crimson Tide dynasty that once captivated the world of College Football is coming to an end and it’s making way for a new king.

For the last decade, the class of college football has been defined:

• First, it was Alabama and then everyone else
• Second, it was Alabama, Clemson and then everyone else
• Third, it was Clemson, Alabama and then everyone else
• Now, it’s about to be Clemson and then everyone else

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