TIDE & TIGERS
Surprise! Alabama, Clemson lead way again
You might want to sit down for this breaking development: Alabama is ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press’ preseason Top 25, and Clemson is ranked No. 2.
In other news, Illinois isn’t anywhere to be found in the poll and the sky is blue.
But let’s be serious as we wheel toward the start of the college football season. Defending national champion Alabama has made it into all four semifinals since the advent of the four-team College Football Playoff. Clemson — the closest thing there is to an equal of the Crimson Tide — has been in the playoff the last three seasons, a run of excellence that includes a title capper to the 2016 campaign.
Goodness, of course the Tide and the Tigers are Nos. 1 and 2 — and not merely because of past performance. The talent-soaked Tide happen to have one of their friendliest schedules of recent vintage, including Auburn at home in the Iron Bowl on the last Saturday of November. Clemson has one of the most talked-about defensive fronts in many a year, a group so wicked it might as well just matriculate to the NFL en masse at the end of the season.
The superpowers might meet in a semifinal at the Orange Bowl or the Cotton Bowl or for all the marbles on January 7 in Santa Clara, California. Then again, they might not meet at all.
Hey, we’re not pretending we actually can see the future here. In Year 5 of the playoff, let’s stick with a ‘‘fives’’ motif, shall we?