NCAA Football National Championship Game Open Thread: #2 Alabama vs. #1 Clemson

The NCAA National Championship pits the best program in college against the undefeated Clemson team. The Patriots have a strong connection with Alabama, with Head Coach Nick Saban once serving as Bill Belichick's Defensive Coordinator in their days in Cleveland. The Patriots have drafted several players from Saban's program, including LB Dont'a Hightower and DL Brandon Deaderick. On the other hand, the Patriots don't have a lot of ties with the current Clemson program, with none of the players on the roster coming from Clemson.

Since taking over at Alabama, Saban has won 3 titles and is the only program to make the College Playoffs for the first two seasons. You can call Saban a College Version of BB, with stern but fair discipline and ability to maximize the production from what he has. Because of that, Saban really only has to compete with Ohio State and Louisiana State (LSU) for the top college prospects.

On the other side, you have an upstart Clemson team led by Heilman finalist QB DeShaun Watson, who will be trying to upset Bama in the title. Watson is also looking to be the top QB taken in the 2017 Draft, the year he's first eligible to do so. In many ways, this is a lot like Super Bowl XLIX, where an upstart Seattle team was trying to forge a potential dynasty, but could not seal the deal against the game's Gold Standard. Clemson has play makers on the perimeter on both offense and defense and is littered with NFL first round talents at every level of the defense. This should shape up to be either an entertaining game or Alabama running the floor again. So will College Football's current dynasty add another trophy to the mantle or will they go down to a Clemson team that has managed to last this far without a disappointing game.

So which team are you rooting for? I'm picking Alabama, winning 35-24.