Dueling Dynasties E-Book

John Crowley

• Herausgeber: BooxAi
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Clemson and Alabama opened their 2008 seasons against each other with the Tide winning. Little did we know that game would lead to both programs reemerging as dynasties and dominating College Football in the Early days of the Playoff System.

Leseprobe

Dueling Dynasties

John Crowley

Dueling Dynasties: How Clemson and Alabama dominated College Football

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2022 by John Crowley

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Published by BooxAi

ISBN: 978-965-577-922-6

Dueling Dynasties

How Clemson and Alabama dominated College Football

John Crowley

Contents

Introduction

Bama Beginning before Bear Bryant

Enter the Bear

Clemson Beginning to the Frank Howard years

Clemson 1970-1989

Bama: After the Bear 1982-2006

Clemson 1990-2007

Nick Saban

2008 season

Dabo Swinney

2009 and 2010 seasons

2011 season

2012 Season

2013 season

2014 season

2015 season

2016 season

2017 season

2018 season

2019 season

2020 season

2021 Season

The Future of the teams

Acknowledgments

Introduction

With the creation of the College Football Playoff in 2014, it was supposed to be the end-all of deciding who was going to be the National Champion. In a long story short, it wasn't. It created as many problems (if not more) as the previous system in the BCS. Yes, it did give two more teams a chance at the national championship but it seems that only the Power 5 Conference teams have the opportunity to play for the title while the group of 5 Conference teams is left out. At least the Group of 5 teams had a chance in playing in a BCS Bowl though they were left out of the National Championship game during the BCS Era, and two of the BCS busters are in major conferences (Utah in the Pac 12 and TCU Big 12). Also, the playoffs have lacked parity. Four of the schools since the Playoffs have been there at least four times including two of them have been there all but one year, and that's been those teams have been the Clemson Tigers and the Alabama Crimson Tide who've played each other four times in the College Football Playoff (three for the National Championship including two of the best national championship games ever played) and it could have been five times if Dabo Swinney kept his mouth shut. OK, could Ohio State still beat Clemson if Dabo didn’t talk shit before the 2021 Sugar Bowl? Maybe Though a fifth playoff matchup (fourth national title matchup) is still likely. Actually, they played each other 15 times prior to them playing against each other, especially four straight years with their legendary coaches (Bama with Bear Bryant and Clemson with Frank Howard) in the late 1960s. Surprised, they didn't play more times because the distance from Clemson to Tuscaloosa is only 324 miles. Clemson has played Bama biggest rivals Auburn University more times, 51 to be exact. Not to mention Walter Riggs, the founder of Clemson Football, brought the game over from Auburn. Both Bama and Clemson hate Auburn and dominate the current college football landscape. Yes, you can make the case of Clemson and Ohio State Buckeyes (one of the four with four appearances) who played each other three times in the playoffs and also Sugar Bowl matchup just a season prior to the playoffs starting, but each of those three times happened during the semifinals but not in the Championship game, plus Ohio State hasn’t won a national title since 2014. I thought about making a comment about Woody Hayes punching a Clemson linebacker in the 1978 Gator Bowl, but I didn't think I would land the punch (OK, I did). Also, it was Hayes' last game as Buckeye Head Coach because of that punch and Ohio State was tired of his shit. Maybe Dabo Swinney and Nick Saban would fight a boxing match for Charity. I bet that would sell a lot of tickets (if it’s safe for gatherings) and get high TV ratings. From the looks of it, we're going to see more Clemson-Alabama and Clemson-Ohio State matchups in the playoffs because those teams, including the Oklahoma Sooners (also been in the Playoffs four times), have dominated their conferences since the Playoffs began, especially Bama who started their dominance (again) during the last years of the BCS. Thanks to the playoff system, They've become College Football's version of the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers though at least with the Warriors and the Cavs, they need to get past three teams as opposed to one for Clemson and Alabama at least they play each other in the semifinals. Their conferences seem to have little to no answers for both teams, especially Clemson in the ACC. Plus, it seems Bama doesn't really need to win their conference to win National Championships. Even if expansion happens in the playoffs (I suggest six teams with the top two teams having a Bye Week), it won't stop Clemson, Bama, Ohio State, and Oklahoma from dominating their conferences. Each program has the same amount of scholarships to give to student-athletes and as of now, all four schools are doing well in recruiting, especially Clemson and Alabama. It seems that Clemson and Alabama have seemed the title contenders year after year despite losing players to the NFL Draft and/or graduation and replacing them with equally good talent, especially Alabama. It seems that they have the best recruiting class nearly every year. Also, their assistants get hired away for Head Coaching jobs and/or other positions. It helps when you got two of the greatest coaches in College Football History in Nick Saban for Alabama and Dabo Swinney for Clemson who actually played for Alabama and was a part of the 1992 National Championship Team. If only Shane Matthews didn't throw that interception. Also, don't be surprised when Saban retires that Alabama booster will do anything to get Dabo to come down to the University of Alabama and I mean anything. Actually, five of Clemson's coaches played for Alabama, two of them for the legendary coach Bear Bryant. They've been toe to toe since 2015 and it seems like their dominance (or predominance in Bama's case) started in the 2008 season where both teams opened the season against each other where the 24th ranked Crimson Tide beat the number nine Tigers 34-10 though it took the Tigers a few seasons to catch up to Bama though that season was the beginning of Dabo's head coaching career as he took over halfway through the season and we all know how that worked out for the Tigers. Yes, Bama has way more prestige than Clemson with about 18 National Championships give or take and Saban has more titles than Dabo though Dabo will have time to catch up to Saban. The BCS wasn't popular, but it was better than College Football Division 1-A now the Football Bowl Subdivision had prior to 1998 (the first season of the BCS). Alabama won some of those championships even though they lost in their bowl games in 1964 and 1973 and in the 1926 season, they tied in their bowl game where they shared the title with Stanford who were 10-0-1. Of course, there's the LSU fans who will say that Alabama had no business in the 2011 Championship game and that should belong to them. Things were crazy back then. Believe it or not, Bama tied Yale with their 18th title and Princeton has 15 (weird, ain't it?). Clemson doesn't have prestige as Bama (then again who does); however, they did have a title back in 1981 though it came with a price as the NCAA came down hard on Clemson for Recruiting Violations. I hate Bama and Clemson; well, I like them. Maybe because of their orange jerseys even though my sister went to a rival school in FSU. She's probably not going to like me too much. Also, it helps that Clemson recruited Deon Cain who went to my high school (different years). Now, for the tale of the dueling dynasties.

Bama Beginning before Bear Bryant

Believe it or not, the Alabama Crimson Tide started their dominance before Bear Bryant was their head coach. I know it seems to be hard to believe, but it's true. The Alabama program started in 1892 when a law student named William Little learned to play the game while attending perp school in the East Coast. He was the first captain in Bama history with future politicians Bibb Greaves and William Bankhead as his teammates and EB Beaumont as the first head coach; they went 2-2. 32 years later and a year after their first conference title (Southern Conference) won its first national championship under coach Wallace Wade by beating the University of Washington Huskies 20-19 in the Rose Bowl (before it exclusively for Pac-12 and Big Ten Teams prior to the BCS) and they repeat by tying Stanford who shared the title. In 1930, Wade led Bama to their third title in six years by beating the Washington State Cougars 24-0. It ended up being the last time coached by Wade for Alabama as he left Duke University where he had success there winning six conference titles though just felt short of the National Championship a few times and led the Southern Conference (a precursor for the SEC and ACC and now a conference for the Football Championship Subdivision) for nearly ten years. His replacement was Frank Thomas (not to be confused with Baseball Hall of Famer and Auburn legend aka the Big Hurt and another baseball player with the same name in the 1950s and 1960s) who was an assistant in Georgia and coach at Chattanooga. He continued to lead Bama to more success leading them to conference championships three of his first four years there, including the National Championship in 1934, a team that featured Receiver Don Huston who went on the be a Hall of Fame Receiver for the Green Bay Packers scoring 99 receiver touchdowns in his career during that era which was unbelievable and a guy by the name Paul Bryant was the other receiver there. Also, Alabama won the first Southeastern Football Conference Championship in 1933 (did you expect anyone else?). During the Thomas tenure, the Tide had an undefeated season but lost out on the SEC title because Bama had a tie and LSU won all their conference games and they didn’t get a bowl invite, had a runner-up finish in 1937, won another title in 1941 according to the Houlgate system even though Bama lost twice that season (again it was a mess prior to the BCS, Playoff System), and had an undefeated season in 1945 but the title was given to Army and Oklahoma A&M (now known as Oklahoma State). In fairness, can you blame the writers for giving to Army especially after winning World War II? Plus Army also went undefeated as well. Winning and kicking ass on the battlefield and the football field. After the 1946 season going 7-4, Thomas resigned from his coaching duties and hired Harold Drew to replace him. Drew also replace Thomas as coach for Chattanooga and Drew coached the Ole Miss Rebels in the 1946 season. Drew's tenure as Alabama head coach was good. He went 54-28-7 during his eight seasons there. However, he was not good enough as he was let go as the football after the 1954 season but stayed around to coach the track team. Also, Drew recruited Bart Starr to play for Bama and Starr went on leading the Packers to championships, including the first two Super Bowls. Drew was replaced by Jennings B. Whitworth, a player on the 1930 championship team and an assistant on the 1934 championship He was the Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State) head coach even though his record was 22-27-2. He was the coach during the Johnny Bright incident where one of his players threw some cheap shots at Johnny Bright, an African American player for Drake University which broke Bright's jaw and Whitworth might have been heard saying the N-word multiple times. Bright ended up being the all-time career rushing leader for the Canadian Football League for a time (now 4th all-time). It took Oklahoma State over 50 years to apologize to Drake University for that incident (Johnny Bright died in 1983). Seriously, they could’ve done that sooner especially while Bright was still alive? Probably not a surprise that Whitworth's tenure at Alabama was terrible. How bad was it? He went 4-24-2 in his three seasons at Bama which included a 0-10 season in 1955. Alabama ended up hiring another former player/assistant who ended up being a legend not only in Alabama but also in College Football as a whole.