Wrap your head around this. In seven days, Clemson will be playing for the National Championship in College Football.
I know that sounds crazy, but it’s true. This is the moment a lot of you have been waiting for since the last time the Tigers played for a national title way back in 1982.
I’ll be honest. Though I thought it might possible, I never thought I would have the opportunity to cover a national championship game. It’s obviously one of my bucket list items and next Monday I can check it off.
So how did the Tigers get here?
Of course we all know the story of the 2015 season so there is no need to rehash that at this moment. But when was the day Clemson’s road to the 2015 National Championship Game really began?
It began on August 30, 2008 in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. That’s the day when we all saw what was about to become of Alabama and what it was going to take for Clemson to get there.
Though the Crimson Tide ranked 24th in coming into the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic and the Tigers were ranked No. 9, it was obvious before the game even started who was the better team.
I remember watching pregame warm ups on the sideline before the start and just seeing how much bigger the Alabama players were to Clemson was unbelievable. They were bigger, stronger and faster. We all knew right then and there, Clemson had no chance to win the game.
On Clemson’s first play, freshman running back Jamie Harper—thanks to a recruiting promise from Tommy Bowden to let him touch the ball on the first play of the season—fumbled the football. Alabama recovered it and the rout was on.
The Tigers’ lone touchdown came on a 96-yard kickoff return from C.J. Spiller to open the second half, but there was nothing more. Alabama won 34-10. It ushered in a new era for Alabama football, as the Crimson Tide has won three National Championships since – 2009, 2011 and 2012. Since then, Alabama has been the Gold Standard in College Football.
But that 34-10 beatdown in the Georgia Dome also ushered in a new era for Clemson football. It was the beginning of the end for the Tommy Bowden era as his magic for longevity finally ran out of tricks six games into the 2008 season.
That’s when Terry Don Phillips stepped out on his own and took a chance on a young wide receivers coach from Pelham, Ala. Dabo Swinney was named the interim coach after Clemson and Bowden agreed to part ways on October 13, 2008.
We all know what has happened since then. Swinney developed a Clemson program that right now is only second to Alabama in terms of consistency. Clemson and Alabama are the only two programs in each of the last five years to win 10 or more games. Of course Alabama has done it eight straight years.
Early this season, I sat in the press box with some of my colleagues and we talked about the potential of a Clemson vs. Alabama National Championship Game. Some thought it would not happen, but I was one of the ones who thought it would.
You have heard that phrase, “What goes around comes around.” It was pretty obvious to me after Clemson beat Notre Dame in a pouring rain storm in Death Valley that the Tigers were the best team in College Football. And I knew then that for the Tigers to get the rest of the country to see what I saw that evening in Clemson, they were going to have to do the only thing they can to earn it – and that’s beat the Gold Standard in the National Championship Game.
So here we are, a week away from the biggest football game for the Clemson program since January 1, 1982. The Nick Saban era of dominance at Alabama began on August 30, 2008 in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. Will it come to an end on January 11, 2016 in Glendale, Ariz., against the same program that started it all?
What goes around always comes back around.