Alabama looked like the bigger, stronger team tonight and they probably were. They also looked like the faster team tonight and they might have been. But most importantly, Bama certainly looked like the DUMBER team tonight and they definitely were that. In a game that echoed the Sugar Bowl, an elite SEC team looked physically superior but got completely dominated. Like Georgia's Jake Fromm, Tua Tagovailoa demonstrated arm strength and accuracy but a lack of reading ability which led to bad throws and turnovers.
When his team got in a deep hole, he did not have the ability to lead them out of it - again echoing the earlier match up in Nawlins. If we went back and watched their conference games, I'm sure we'd see Tua and Jake burning basic coverage schemes with simple, pre-snap reads and superior athletes catching and running with the ball. That's certainly what I saw when reviewing Georgia vs Mizzou, Florida, Tennessee, Auburn, Kentucky and to an extent Bama. When faced with comparable athletes running better coverage schemes, the vaunted pass efficiency numbers (Tagovailoa #1, Fromm #5) vaporized like spit in a blast furnace. Both of Tua's picks were mis-reads of the coverage. Like Fromm he mostly threw underneath the coverage or to open men in single coverage for easy reads.
Clemson has excellent DL so they were able to mostly contain Bama's running game with a 6 man box and minimal games. Once they put the game on the QB's shoulders it was pretty much over. In contrast Trevor Lawrence was truly impressive in his accuracy and reads of the defense. He made some amazing throws on corner / deep out routes against zone and double coverage. His ability to sustain drives even after major penalties prevented Bama from getting the short fields their offense needed. Lawrence's passing ability was complemented by a nice ground game incorporating misdirection and a really, really good O Line.
In another parallel to the Sugar Bowl, poor special teams play helped to put Bama in a hole. The missed XP them points when they had the lead. The kick out of bounds gave Clemson good field position to start their 3rd TD drive which put them in the lead for good. The pathetic fake FG when Clemson was obviously ready for it was a terrible decision and Saban should have had his offense on the field if he wanted to go for it in that situation.
I think Texas did a lot of damage to the invincible SEC myth and Clemson did even more. You can hear the edifice creaking despite everything ESPN can do to prop it up. Credit Dabo and Venables. This game should give Texas fans even more hope that getting close on talent combined with superior coaching can produce top notch results.