ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) – When Ohio state disappointed Alabama in the semifinals of the early school football playoffs on their way to the Buckeyes’ final national title, it was like the beginning of an emerging playoff rivalry between the two classical powers.
Instead, Clemson, Crimson Tide’s arch nemesis and the biggest challenger in Nick Saban’s Alabama dynasty for the next five years.
Six years later, the state of Ohio and Alabama meet, the tide continues to roll, and the Buckeyes once seek turmoil.
After SEC champion Crimson Tide edged Notre Dame 31-14 in a Rose Bowl played at Heart of Texas, the Big Ten No. 3 Buckeyes defeated Clemson 49-28 in the other PSC semifinal at the Sugar Bowl. on Friday. at night the six landing passes of Justin Fields.
The Fields feels like it will be the main story line before the name game. He took a short short to appearance at the time of the quarter opposite Clemson, but controlled to play through the pain.
“He couldn’t do it all, but what a brave actor, what a difficult and special young man Justin Fields is,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day said in his season so far after taking over from Urban Meyer.
Clemson is trying, like Alabama, to make the name game for the fifth time in seven four-team playoff seasons. This would have been the Tigers-Tide’s fourth game for the CFP Championship.
Instead, it’s a memorable game of betting systems on Jan. 11 in suburban Miami for this unusual peak season champion played in the shadow of a pandemic.
Alabama was seeded in the first four-team playoffs after the 2014 season, but Ohio State beat Tide 42-35 in the Sugar Bowl semifinals Meyer, Ezekiel Elliott and Cardale JonesArray
These Buckeyes have faced doubts about their playoffs like these. In 2014, Ohio State had to come back from an early season loss to Virginia Tech to slide into last position in the playoffs on the final weekend of the regular season.
After beating Alabama, the Buckeyes earned the national name 42-20 over Oregon that year, having lost to Clemson twice in the semifinals since.
While this season’s CFP featured a third naming set directly opposite undefeated teams, this one is a bit different.
Alabama played 12 games, going through a normal conference season before holding Florida 52-46 in the SEC championship game and then winning the moved Rose Bowl. This semi-final has been moved from Pasadena due to COVID-19 restrictions that would have prevented the circle of relatives, or any other fan, from attending the game.
Ohio State’s landslide victory in the Sugar Bowl is only their seventh game this season.
The Buckeyes had 3 regular season games canceled due to virus problems after the Big Ten didn’t start their season until late October. The league replaced its regulations to allow them to constitute the East Division in the convention championship game after only five games of the normal season, of the six that were originally mandatory.
The fact that Ohio state could even play unexpectedly after the Big Ten canceled their fall season in August to move to the opposite course in September,
“With everything this team has been through in the last 10 months, I am very satisfied with this organization of guys,” Ohio State linebacker Tuf Borland said.
Alabama opened as a landing favorite opposite Ohio State in a prolific attack that featured two Heisman Trophy finalists.
DeVonta Smith, the favorite to win the Heisman next week, hit 3 landing passes from fellow runner-up Mac Jones opposite Notre Dame.
Smith had seven receptions for 130 yards, while Jones completed 25 of 30 passes for 297 yards.
“Smitty has done as much for our team as any player can for any team,” said Saban, who will contest his sixth national championship with Alabama and seventh overall.
Heisman’s votes had already been cast before the semi-final. Alabama running back Najee Harris, fifth in the vote and last order of 4 with Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence and Florida’s Kyle Trask will be revealed Tuesday night.
Playing six games removed Fields from the Heisman conversation. Especially after poor functionality in the Big Ten name game opposite Northwestern.
Fields looked like one of the country’s players in the Sugar Bowl when the Buckeyes avenged themselves for the CFP’s painful loss last season to Lawrence and Clemson.
“In life, you don’t have a chance to have a chance at the moment,” Day said. “But you can’t miss the moment. So I don’t know what excites us the most, the fact that we have the chance to play for a national championship or the fact that we have avenged that loss. “
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Ralph D. Russo, AP’s school football editor, has contributed from New Orleans.
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