Alabama football players are no strangers to celebrations or very brief celebrations.
The latter was certainly the case early Saturday evening, when the top-ranked Crimson Tide punched their ticket to next Monday night’s national title game with a 24-7 trampling of No. 4 Washington in the Peach Bowl semifinal. Alabama didn’t need long to discover its opponent for the trip to Tampa, Fla., as No. 2 Clemson humbled No. 3 Ohio State 31-0 Saturday night at the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Ariz.
Confetti fell from the Georgia Dome immediately after the final college football game that will be held at that facility, but there was no jubilation in Alabama’s locker room. The 24-hour rule wasn’t even 24 minutes, because Crimson Tide players turned their thoughts to preparing for the championship showdown.
“It’s going to come fast, and you don’t really have time to rest up like we did to play this game,” senior tight end O.J. Howard said. “It’s going to come fast, so we have to finish strong. We’ve got one more game to go, and you’ve got to have that mindset to finish.”
The meeting between Alabama (14-0) and Clemson (13-1) marks the first rematch of a national title game since the Bowl Championship Series was implemented in 1998 and replaced by the current four-team playoff in 2014. The Crimson Tide beat the Tigers 45-40 last January, surviving a Clemson offense that racked up 31 first downs and 550 yards, including 405 through the air from Deshaun Watson.