TAMPA, Fla. — For a second straight year, I’m writing my Monday Morning Quarterback column the morning of covering a national championship game.

I will be honest it is something I never imagined I would get the opportunity to do, much less get to do it twice.

I remember when I was nine years old, waking up in my Piedmont, South Carolina home on January 1, 1982. I was so excited that day because Clemson was about to embark on one of the greatest evenings in the program’s history. It was like a fairytale story – a small school located in a small town in rural South Carolina on top of the college football world. It was crazy. I was special. It is still one of the greatest moments I have witnessed as a sports fan.

I, like all the other suffering Clemson fans since then, waited for the next 22 years to see it again. I wanted to feel that magic once more. I wanted to see Clemson on top of that mountain for a second time.

As I got older, thanks to three straight losses to NC State, a play called Puntrooskie, an unexplainable loss to Duke and then Florida State’s admittance to the ACC, I came to accept that a magical season like 1981 was not likely to happen ever again.

Hey, I was happy, though. I got to experience it at least once. There are a lot of college football fans who can’t say that. As I have written many times before, the 1981 season played a major influence on why I became a sportswriter.

Obviously, once I became a sportswriter, I followed the Tigers from a far. Then in the spring of 2004, I got my opportunity to cover Clemson athletics, and I have been doing it ever since.

When I started on the Clemson beat, never did I imagine I would be sitting here, for a second straight year, writing about a national championship game that involved Clemson.

Clemson was a good football program then, but that’s all it was. It was going to win its occasional eight to nine games, flirt a little with 10 wins and a possible ACC Championship, but it was never going to climb that mountain. I accepted that fact even more as a journalist when I started covering the program.

However, I never saw a young wide receivers coach, who took over as an interim head coach in 2008, coming in and energizing the Clemson fan base and program the way Dabo Swinney has. As I have written many times before, Swinney is different from any other coach in the game, and it is an advantage he uses very well.

I have been doing this a long time, and you don’t find head coaches as positive and as uplifting as Dabo Swinney. It’s not normal for a head coach of a major college program to say he will win a national championship at Clemson. Coaches in the past have said they can win one at Clemson because it has been done before, but never have they said they will lead Clemson to a national championship like Swinney did.

I remember the chuckles coming from the media section when Swinney said that the day he was hired as Clemson’s head coach on December 1, 2008. I’ll admit it, I was one of them.

But it did not take long for Swinney to prove us wrong. In his first year, he was one stop away from delivering the program its first ACC Championship since 1991, and then two years later, he did bring it back home to Clemson.

We all know the story since then. The Tigers have gone 69-13 since 2011. They have beaten some of the top teams in college football, teams such as LSU, Georgia, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Auburn and Florida State. Swinney has beaten coaching legends such as Les Miles, Bob Stoops and Urban Meyer.

Clemson has won at least 10 games for six straight seasons, won five straight bowl games, five division titles and three ACC Championships.

Now, for a second straight year, the Tigers have an opportunity to bring a national championship back to Clemson, and you know what? I really like the Tigers’ chances to get it done tonight.

As I was walking down the stairs in the WestZone last Wednesday following Swinney’s press conference, the Clemson head coach was on his way down to do an interview for ESPN. When Swinney saw me, he said to me and said, “Will, We are going to the Natty. Are you excited? You get to cover us at the natty again. Enjoy the ride! This is special.”

You are right, Dabo. Today is a special day. Like I did 35 years ago when I woke knowing that Clemson was going to win the national championship, I woke up this morning feeling the same way. I’m excited to cover a national championship game and all the possibilities that lay ahead.

By this time tomorrow morning, we could be calling Clemson the 2016 National Champions. And you know what? I have a pretty good feeling that we will.