NEW ORLEANS — Everyone is calling tonight’s Sugar Bowl matchup between No. 1 Clemson vs. No. 4 Alabama: The Trilogy. But Dabo Swinney says hold on just a second. There is going to be more games between these two heavyweights in the future.

Clemson and Alabama played two of the best national championship games in the history of college football the last two years, and everyone is hoping tonight’s College Football Playoff Semifinal will live up to the hype of the previous two.

“We haven’t competed against each other a lot,” Swinney said. “But all of a sudden you’ve got this three-game series that has just happened at the highest level. And this is kind of a rubber match. But, to be honest with you, this is probably not going to be the last one. There will probably be more of these down the road, and I think that’s great.”

Because of Swinney’s deep ties to the Alabama program, first as a fan then as a player and an assistant coach, Clemson-Alabama has become a small rivalry that two years ago no one would have expected. But it makes sense that it has become one given the ties between the two programs.

Clemson’s iconic and legendary head coach Frank Howard played on Alabama’s 1930 National Championship team. A young Alabama assistant coach by the name of Jess Neely brought Howard with him to Clemson win he took over the program in 1931. When Neely left Clemson for Rice in 1940, Howard took over as head coach and stayed in that position until 1969 when he retired.

Howard’s replacement, Hootie Ingram, was also an Alabama graduate, as too was Charlie Pell, who led the Tigers to an 18-4-1 record in his two years as head coach, which included an ACC Championship in 1978.

Pell’s replacement was a guy named Danny Ford, who three years later led the Tigers to the 1981 National Championship and went 96-29-4 in his 11 years as its head coach. Ford also played at Alabama, and his Clemson teams won six bowl games, five ACC Championships and went 7-3-1 against rival South Carolina.

Now there is Dabo Swinney, another Alabama guy that has taken Clemson to even bigger heights than those before him.

“I think, at the end of the day, Alabama people respect good football. And I think that they know that we’ve got a good football team, and we’re going to compete,” Swinney said. “Even when we lost a couple of years ago, we’re going to lay it on the line. And we know they’re going to do the same thing.”

“I think it’s a fun game,” he continued. “Again, this is big-boy football. You have got a lot of incredibly talented football players that are going to be on the field, and they all want the same thing. I don’t have any doubt it will be a great game. But from a fan standpoint, I think it’s a very healthy respect on both sides.”