Trailing Alabama by three points near the end of the first quarter, Clemson faced a critical third down-and-16 play from its own 18 yard line. It was a similar situation to last year’s national championship game, when the Tigers already trailed 14-0 and really had not done much on offense at all.

In that game, Clemson called a screen pass to one of its most dynamic playmakers—Deon Cain—and he turned it into a 43-yard completion that jump started an offense that Alabama could not stop the rest of the night.

Now fast forward to last Monday night. Once again, Clemson needed a play to get its offense going. Nothing was working as the Crimson Tide defense had stonewalled the Tigers to exactly zero yards in eight plays to that point.

So Clemson offensive coordinator Tony Elliott called for crossing route over the middle for Cain, who came open on the play, and who would have easily made the first down and more. However, Cain dropped the pass and once again the Clemson offense stalled before it even got started.

“It started with the field position early,” Clemson co-offensive coordinator Tony Elliott said. “We were backed up a lot and then we did not hit some plays. We had a third-down play to Deon that if we hit that it would spark the tempo a little bit and give us a little bit more confidence and give us some momentum.

“But we did not hit that play and then from then on out we were not able to get in a rhythm.”

Clemson, which finished the season 12-2, had no rhythm at all in the Sugar Bowl loss to Alabama. The Tigers finished the game with 188 total yards. They did not score a touchdown for the first time since a 2014 loss to Georgia Tech, and finished the game with just 14 first downs.

The Tigers rushed for just 64 yards on 33 carries, while quarterback Kelly Bryant was sacked five times. Bryant threw two interceptions, one when he was viciously hit from behind by outside linebacker Anfernee Jennings causing the ball to pop up in the air and land in the arms of nose tackle Da’Ron Payne.

Payne’s interception was perhaps the play of the game because the Tigers trailed just 10-6 at the time and were in the middle of their best drive of the game when the interception occurred at the Alabama 37-yard line.

“When we started to drive the ball a little bit, then we obviously would have some critical mistakes, which was uncharacteristic of ourselves,” Elliott said. “That just gave them all the confidence they needed to pin their ears back and get after us.”