(Photo Credit: USA TODAY)

One Of The Biggest Rivalries In Football

Clemson and Alabama have each won two of the last four college football championships. In an alternating pattern.

In 2015, Alabama beat Clemson 45-40 to win the title. In 2016, Clemson returned the favor, 35-31. Two riveting games, with a total point differential of one.

In 2017, the Crimson Tided earned the No. 1 ranking by besting Georgia 23-20.

And last year Clemson shredded the Tide 44-16.

Can you guess which teams are ranked 1-2-3 in the preseason polling? USA Today’s coaches poll has the defending champion Tigers first, with Bama and Georgia right behind. The Associated Press doesn’t release its results until Aug. 19. ESPN’s power rankings are Tigers, Tide, Bulldogs.

As ESPN so aptly puts it: The top of our preseason college football power rankings a national title game, stays on top, but the Crimson Tide are right behind at No. 2. The prospect of Clemson vs. Alabama, Part V is very real.

Do we like that? Well, we’ll see. One more showdown between quarterbacks Tua Tagovailoa of Bama and Trevor Lawrence of the Tigers would be fine. Georgia would likely have to get past the Tide in the SEC Championship Game to have a shot at the championship – that’s like playing for the title twice, though both got there in 2017.

The other interesting angle is the team ranked No. 4 by the coaches and ESPN – Oklahoma. The Sooners quarterback is Jalen Hurts, once the starter at Alabama until he lost his job to Tagovailoa.

The start of the season is less than three weeks away. The end is more than five months down the road. It’s going to be fun, whether we get Clemson-Alabama again or a blast from a little lower in the pack (hello there, Ohio State and Michigan).

 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman