Reality

If you give Nick Saban an inch, he’ll take a mile.

It wasn’t too long ago when the Alabama head coach attributed his team not playing well in a road win at Texas A&M to the media blowing smoke.

"I'm trying to get our players to listen to me instead of listening to you guys,” said Saban. “All that stuff you write about how good we are, all that stuff they hear on ESPN, it's like poison.”

Rat poison.

For the rest of the season, Alabama got by every week to keep its title as the best team in the country. Finally, the Tide slipped up in the Iron Bowl to Auburn ending their regular season not winning their own division.

For the first time in a long time, Alabama was on the outside looking in and needed some help.

Georgia defeated Auburn in a rematch to win the SEC. Undefeated Wisconsin fell to Ohio State in the BIG 10 championship. On Sunday morning, you looked up and the Tide managed to sneak in the Playoff at No. 4 for another matchup with Clemson.

Rat poison then turned into Gatorade for Saban's squad.

Imagine: you’re Nick Saban. For 29 days, the entire country is talking about how your team doesn’t deserve to be in the Playoff.

You’re coming off of a loss. You’re matched up with a Clemson team that ripped another national title out of your hands one year ago.

On top of all that, there is a narrative that with an Alabama loss, there will be a changing of the guard. The Tigers will take over as the new kings of college football.

Omar from The Wire said it best: “When you come at the king, you best not miss.”

Saban had all the ammunition he needed and the Tide came out playing with a massive chip on their shoulder.

You could see it from the opening kickoff when Trevon Diggs walloped Travis Etienne. There was an edge to Alabama that hadn’t been seen in a while.

The Tide were so fired up to get their revenge against Clemson that strength and condition coach Scott Cochran obliterated the pain from last year’s defeat by destroying the runner-up trophy.

(Yes, that really happened).

A defense we were told wasn’t healthy enough to hold Clemson’s offense turned into monsters. They made life a nightmare for Kelly Bryant and company all evening long.

There were many quotes from Clemson players to choose from that described Alabama’s physical dominance, especially on the defensive side of the ball. Etienne’s description stood out the most.

“They were just themselves.”

The Sugar Bowl was less about Clemson, but more about Alabama saying “hold on, we’re not quite done yet.”

And they aren’t. The Tide are playing for their 6th national title in ten years. With a win, every class Saban has signed since 2000 will have won a national title.

That’s the king just being himself.

On the morning of January 2nd, reality set in for the college football world. Alabama isn’t going anywhere.

But neither is Clemson.

“I don't think this will be the last one,” Dabo Swinney said after the 24-6 loss. “Everybody talks about the trilogy and all of that are like somebody is fixing to die or something, like the world is coming to an end. We will be back and so will they.”

Georgia and Alabama have a combined 52 seniors between them. Clemson will lose only six seniors as well as a handful of players leaving for the NFL Draft.

Clemson will regroup and reload with the talent coming back and bringing in, starting with Trevor Lawrence and Xavier Thomas beginning classes in a couple of days. The two are roommates.

That, and the fact Swinney’s coaching staff have remarkably stayed intact; will prime Clemson for another championship run.

When the team reconvenes in the coming weeks, Swinney will still have the same old picture with a giant windshield and a small rear-view mirror. The “windshield mentality” has always been Swinney’s mantra and it hasn’t done him wrong.

“It’s always about what’s next,” Swinney said before leaving the podium after the Sugar Bowl loss.

That’s true now more than ever. It’ll be interesting to see how things play out in the years to come.

Alabama made a statement in the Sugar Bowl that its program isn’t going anywhere as long as Saban is around. His program remains the standard, the king, of college football.

But Swinney and the program he’s built will continue to be right there, waiting for their opportunity to seize the crown.

To the rest of the college football kingdom: it’s reality.