Alabama football trailed Clemson at halftime of the College Football Playoff National Championship Game. The second half started rough for the Tide, too.
Nick Saban doesn’t often get outcoached. There’s a reason why the six-time National Championship-winning coach has reached the top of the mountain as many times as he has. But there’s a chance even Saban has found his match.
Trailing 31-16 with a missed extra point in the rearview mirror, Saban decided to roll the dice on fourth down. He’d rolled the dice three times in the title game already and converted on all three. The fourth attempt was, well, a disaster.
Instead of leaving the offense on the field, Alabama opted to try a fake field goal. This was the result:
This fake field goal makes no sense. pic.twitter.com/5VqMtgFwis
— Yahoo Sports College Football (@YahooSportsCFB) January 8, 2019
Using your kicker as a lead blocker. Yep, that happened. Nick Saban is arguably the greatest coach in the history of this game. He’s run circles around just about every other opposing team and coach who have ever stood on the opposite sideline. On Monday night on the nation’s biggest stage, something wasn’t clicking.
Following the botched attempt, Clemson connected on a 74-yard touchdown pass from Trevor Lawrence to Justyn Ross. The touchdown (and subsequent second missed extra point of the game, this time by Clemson) gave the Tigers a 21-point advantage midway through the third quarter.
A fake field goal isn’t going to decide a game of this magnitude. There were more plays, for the better and for the worst, made by both teams in Santa Clara. But this play might be the moment where the unbeatable Crimson Tide dynasty became mortal. No longer could Alabama impose their will, they had to get cute and it backfired.