Match Preview
This is the National Championship game that everyone was hoping would happen. It pits the #1 Alabama Crimson Tide against the #2 Clemson Tigers. Both of these teams feature multiple players that were named as either first, second or third team All-American’s. This game is repeat of last season’s exciting National Championship game which ended as a close win for Alabama 45-40.
Coach Nick Saban and his Alabama Crimson Tide (14-0 overall, 9-0 conference) finished the regular season with the best scoring defense in the nation only allowing an average of 11.8 points per game. They lead the nation in points and yards allowed along with being third in sacks. The defense is led by the star player, Jonathan Allen, a potential top-10 NFL draft pick has 62 tackles, 15 tackles for loss and 9.5 sacks. On Offense, the Quaterback, Jalen Hurts is a top Freshman, who is supported by three really good Running Backs Damien Harris, Bo Scarbrough & Joshua Jacobs and two outstanding receivers ArDarius Stewart & Calvin Ridley.
In this year’s Peach Bowl, there was a decisive win over #4 Washington 24-7. The recent stepping down of Alabama’s Offensive Coordinator was initially going to be a detriment to them, but, they ended up naming one of their offensive analysts, Steve Sarkisian, the former Washington & USC coach to the position - he should fill in the gap nicely.
Coach Dabo Swinney and his Clemson Tigers (13-1 overall, 8-1 conference) had another great season, their defense was rated as the 6th best in the nation, with the 4th best passing defense and 7th best road run defense. The performance of their star quarterback, Deshaun Watson, will be crucial, he was #6 in Quarterback Ratings list, he’s passed this season for 3,914 yards and 37 passing TD’s, he’s also had 526 rushing yards and 6 rushing TD’s. He has the 2nd most career TD’s among active QB’s. Assisting him will be the Running Back, Wayne Gallman, who’s had 1,002 rushing yards and 15 TD’s and the WR, Mike Williams, who leads the team with 90 receptions for 10 TD’s and 1,267 yards.
In this year’s Fiesta Bowl Clemson’s defense totally shut down #3 Ohio State’s offense and held them to zero points winning 31-0.
Comparisons
Courtesy of ESPN, SBNation & TeamRankings.com
Presenter: @theprophet0.
Writer: @applecrisp.
Game Information
Monday, January 9th on ESPN (American Time | Date)
5:00 PM PST - 7:00 PM CST - 8:00 PM EST - (January 10th, 1:00 AM UTC)
Raymond James Stadium, Tampa, Florida
Online Viewing: WatchESPN
Live Stats: CBS Sports | ESPN
TV & Radio
Homepage
HOW TO PLAY
• To enter the FREE PLAY, comment below the image of your chosen outcome with the spread (difference in score). Example if you think Team A will win by 10 points you will comment under the image of Team A with “Win by 10” or just “10”.
• Entry cut-off time is the earlier of the post payout or the start of the event.
• Once the post has paid out and the results are known; the presenter will attend to the payouts manually until such time as we have developed an app to handle this automatically.
• A maximum of 20 correct entries will be chosen at random to enter the final Stake Pool.
• More than one entry per account will be disqualified.
STAKE POOL
• All the liquid currency will be distributed to Writers (40%) and Presenters (60%)
• 100% of the Steem Power (SP) pool will distributed to winners equally, no rewards will be retained by the @steemsports account.
• To facilitate the distribution of time-locked SP, we will use available liquid Steem to initiate the SP distribution and “top-up” via power-down.
Disclaimer: This is a beta experimental game type, subject to amendment as necessary.