At last all is apparently well in college football as the University of Alabama Crimson Tide prepares to meet the University of Georgia Bulldogs in Monday night's NCAA national championship game in Atlanta.
The fourth-seeded Tide reached the game by dominating top seed Clemson, 24-6, while third seed Georgia got to the title game with a thrilling 54-48 double overtime victory over second-seeded Oklahoma.
Alabama's victory avenged a loss in last year's championship game against
Clemson and made it two out of three against the Tigers after the Tide prevailed in the 2015 championship game.
The win also served as a definitive rebuke to Ohio State fans, who felt that the Buckeyes, and not the Crimson Tide, should have gotten the last spot in the four-team College Football Playoff, despite an inferior record.
But to be honest, I did not feel all that confident heading into last Monday night's semi-final after that discouraging loss to archrival Auburn at Jordan-Hare Stadium in the last regular season game. Alabama coach Nick Saban said the team seemed to lose its identity in that loss and the fear here was that we might still be in search of ourselves against Clemson.
But those misgivings were quickly put to rest as the Tide came out with the most ferocious defense it has exhibited all season and cruised to the convincing win. In fact, the defense out-scored Clemson all by itself, converting an interception into a touchdown while holding Clemson to two field goals.
Which brings us to what I see as Alabama's potential Achilles heel Monday night, namely an inconsistent offense that will need to put points on the board against the high-scoring Bulldogs.
The fact is, despite the powerful running tandem of Damien Harris and Bo Scarborough and game quarterback Jalen Hurts, the Tide offense has been questionable, if efficient, this season. It seemed to fade late in the year, needing a late touchdown to pull out a victory in Starkville against Mississippi State and then laying an egg in Auburn.
I think that was the main reason I had so many misgivings going into the game against Clemson and why I am a bit concerned about our chances against Georgia.
In my opinion, the keys to winning will be, as in the Clemson game, to get an early score, maintain a ball-control offense -- whether Hurts has to complete many passes or not -- and continue to play dominating, suffocating defense.
Another key to the game will be to contain Georgia's two fine running backs, Nick Chubb and Sony Michel, both of whom had monster games against Oklahoma. If those two get it going, Alabama may find itself in the kind of shootout that we don't want.
Still, I feel cautiously optimistic about the Tide's chances -- certainly a lot more so than last week.
And if Alabama does win the game, it will be its fifth national championship in the last nine years, cementing Saban's place among the greatest college football coaches of all time.
Roll, Tide, Roll...
Tommy Stevenson is retired associate editor of The Tuscaloosa News. Readers can contact him at beebranch@yahoo.com or 205-292-2236.