It’s been quite a tumultuous season in college football, but it’s also been extraordinary.

We’ve seen some of the best offensive performances in 2021 put up by some of the most spectacular players who have ever played college football. And there are 3 of them playing tonight for the No.1 Crimson Tide versus one of the most dynamic quarterbacks, a stellar running back, and a stable-full of receivers for the No.3 Ohio State Buckeyes squaring off in the CFB National Championship Game at 7 on E-S-P-N. Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbistreit, Maria Taylor and Allison Williams will call the action.

DeVonta Smith, Mac Jones and Najee Harris have become the Three Dominant Amigos of College Football. Smith led the nation in receptions with 105, receiving yards with 1,641, and receiving touchdowns with 20, and carried home a wheelbarrow full of trophies as he won the Biletnikoff Award for Most Outstanding Receiver, the Maxwell Award for College Player of the Year, the Walter Camp Award for Player of the Year, the Associated Press Award for Player of the Year, and the most historic and revered of them all, the Heisman Trophy. DeVonta was the first receiver to win the award since 1991 when Desmond Howard won it. And he couldn’t be a classier young guy with equally and amazingly classy, humble parents. The great Mac Jones completed 275-of-357 passes, an astounding 77%, for 4,036 yards, 36 TDs and 4 ints. Mac took home the Davey O’Brien Award for Most Outstanding quarterback. The equally sensational Najee Harris rushed for 1,387 yards and 24 TDs and caught 36 passes for 346 yards and 3 TDs. Just a complete running back and as good a hurdler as the great Olympic Champion Edwin Moses was. Wow, what hops. Someone wrote yesterday that Najee is not Derrick Henry. I’m not sure about that. He’s pretty spectacular. I don’t like to compare two players when they’re on different levels. Why don’t you give Najee a chance to play in the NFL before belittling him as a player. Derrick Henry is elite without a doubt, but Najee is pretty sensational and elite himself. He can be as good or even better than Henry. He’ll get another chance to showcase that talent tonight at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami before a crowd of around 13-14,000 and many millions of Americans watching. But there are other dynamic players on the Crimson Tide offense. Miller Forrestal and Jahleel Billingsley are terrific tight ends. John Metchie caught 47 passes for 835 yards and 6 TDs. And then you have one of the most dominant offensive lines at least in this century. The Alabama O line won the Joe Moore Award for the most outstanding offensive line in College Football. Left tackle Alex Leatherwood won the Outland Trophy for most outstanding Interior Lineman. Landon Dickerson won the Rimington Award for Most Outstanding Center. He will most likely be out tonight and Chris Owens will take his position. Owens also started against Notre Dame in the semifinal game as Dickerson hurt his knee and was ruled out for the season in the SEC Championship Game. Owens held his own against Notre Dame. Ohio State has a pretty stout defensive line, so the O line will be tested. Owens will be on alert against a formidable opponent.

So all good with this offense. Nicholas Lou Saban is 164-23 as Alabama Head Coach. That’s 87 percent. Pretty extraordinary. He’s won 5 National Championships at Alabama in 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015 and 2017. He also won the National Championship at LSU in 2003. If he wins tonight, he will surpass the great Bear Bryant with 7 National Championships. He is elite without a doubt, but at the same time, it’s not like it hasn’t been done before at Alabama. Before Saban, the Crimson Tide had won 12 National Championships. “The Bear” won National Championships in 1961, 1964, 1965, 1973, 1978, and 1978 in his illustrious career. Wallace Wade won National Championships in 1925, 1926 and 1930. Frank Thomas, the father of the great “Tucky,” who liked to hit line drives at his Little League Baseball Teams from 10 feet away, just so he made sure “His Boys could catch,” just ask Mr. Fun/Little Omaha/Watergate, the great break-in at Cherokee Bend School equivalent to the Nixon Break-in of the Democratic Headquarters in 1972. Thomas won National titles in 1934 and 1941. And Gene Stallings won a National Title in 1992. So it wasn’t unprecedented for Saban to win national championships at Alabama. He’s done well though, no doubt.

The defense has elite players, but at times has been torched by great quarterback play. The Ole Miss game was a while back, but the Rebels and Lane scored 48 points on the Crimson Tide on October 10th. But the Florida Gators and Kyle Trask and his prolific receivers scored 46 points against the Crimson Tide defense in the SEC Championship Game in December, so the defense will be tested by the spectacular Justin Fields and this high octane Ohio State offense. Interestingly, and I read this in a Washington Post article yesterday, written by Post writer Chuck Culpepper, Fields will be throwing against 4 Crimson Tide defensive backs who all hail from South Florida. Junior Cornerback Patrick Surtain II if from Plantation, FL, about 25 miles from downtown Miami. Sophomore safety Jordan Battle is from Fort Lauderdale. Redshirt Junior safety Daniel Wright is from Fort Lauderdale. And junior cornerback Josh Jobe is from Miami. So he’ll be throwing against the hometown boys. May not be a factor at all, just an interesting fact.

Ohio State has won 8 national championships in its rich football history, so they’re no stranger to this arena. The Buckeyes boast Championships in 1942, 1954, 1957, 1961, split with Alabama, 1968, 1970, 2002 and 2014. Ryan Patrick Day has been spectacular as head coach. He was an interim when Urb was suspended for 3 games for ignoring an assistant coach’s wife assaulting behavior and Day went 3-0 in 2018. At the time I thought, “Just forget about Urb, keep this guy.’ When Urb retired, once again, Urb gets tired then misses the limelight, Day went 13-1 last year, losing in a phenomenal Semifinal Fiesta Bowl game to Clemson on an interception in the endzone as Clemson won 29-23. That game stuck with Day and his team, and Dabo Swinney even fueled this teams’ fire even more by voting them 11th in the final coaches poll this season and blatantly disrespected them in the process to the media. Swinney got what was coming to him in a 49-28 defeat in the Sugar Bowl semifinal. Day went 7-0 this year, and is now 23-1. I’ve read a lot about him. He was an accomplished quarterback at New Hampshire. He is 41 years old. Saban is 69, but I don’t see any major coaching advantage. This a really good head coach and a really good staff.

Fields is a phenomenon as well. He has completed 141 of 192 passes, 73%, for 1,906 yards in 7 games, with 21 TDs and 6 ints. He really made his statement in the semifinal game against Clemson. Clemson was a 7 point favorite and nobody really gave Ohio State a real chance besides Walter Pittman on this blog. Fields completed 22-of-28 passes for 385 yards, 6 TDs against only 1 int. He threw for as many touchdowns as he threw incompletions. And much of his stellar work was after he got blasted in the ribs on a targeting tackle by Clemson linebacker James Skalski. Ryan Day said Fields had a good week of practice last week. He will be wearing some sort of protective vest tonight, and it’ll be interesting to see how he takes the physicality of this game, but he’s a warrior, so I expect him to play well. Trey Sermon has rushed for 868 yards and 4 TDs. The transfer from Oklahoma has made his mark in the last 2 games, after a somewhat slow start to the season. Against Northwestern in the Big Ten Championship Game in Indianapolis, Sermon rushed for a mind boggling 334 yards and 2 TDs. He single handedly won the game for the Buckeyes, which struggled as Fields was only 12-of-27 for 114 yards and was sacked twice. Sermon carried the load and led the Buckeyes to a 22-10 victory over a very solid and tough defensive Northwestern Football team. Just ask Auburn about Northwestern. They won’t be belittling them. The Wildcats handed it to the Tigers on New Year’s Day, 35-19, in the Vrbo Citrus Bowl. Then in the semifinal game, Sermon rushed for 193 yards and another TD. He’s a force. Wide receiver Chris Olave has missed some time due to Covid, as a lot of Buckeyes have, but he’s a beyond stellar receiver. He has caught 42 passes for 660 yards and 7 TDs. He caught 6 passes for 132 yards and 2 TDs against Clemson in a game where he showcased what a spectacular player he is. Fields hooked up with Olave on a beautiful 56 yard TD pass. It was thrown perfectly and caught and run in perfectly. Garrett Wilson is another threat on the perimeter. Wilson caught 40 passes for 673 yards and 5 TDs this season. Tight ends Jeremy Ruckert and Luke Ferrell are more weaponry for Fields. Ruckert hauled in 2 TD passes against Clemson and Ferrell added another TD catch.

Ohio State’s secondary is vulnerable. Cornerback Shaun Wade could be a first round draft pick, and he’ll be squaring off with DeVonta, and that will be a heckuva challenge for Wade. The front seven is pretty stout, so that will help the secondary, even though the Buckeye front 7 will be going against a dominating, physical offensive line.

Alabama has the edge at kicker as Will Reichard has been sensational for the Crimson Tide. It’s the first time you can say that Nick Saban has had an elite kicker. It’s usually been a trouble area for the Crimson Tide. But Reichard hasn’t missed a kick this year. He’s 77-of-77 on extra points and 13-of-13 on field goals with several 40+ yarders and a couple of 50+ yarders in there. He’s terrific. Neither team punts much, but that could be a factor if the defenses can make some stops.

A real X factor is Jaylen Waddle. He’s been practicing with the team. My inclination is the electric playmaker for the Crimson Tide will have a hard time making a major impact on this game coming back from a broken ankle suffered back in October against Tennessee. But you never know. He could be a surprise, and he certainly would be a game changer if he is available and able to be Jaylen Waddle.

One final thing, the draft is going to be loaded with players from these 2 teams’ rosters. Devonta Smith, Mac Jones, Najee Harris, Alex Leatherwood, Landon Dickerson, Surtain II, Christian Barmore, the great defensive tackle for the Crimson Tide, all those guys could and should be first rounders with Smith going top 3 and the others all in the first round. Three more, Harris, Surtain II and Jones may go in the top 10 to 12 picks as they are projected by Kiper and McShay the ESPN gurus of the draft.. Fields looks like a lock top 10 pick. Olave is top 10 to 12. Sermon could be a top 20-25 pick. Wade a first round pick. So the talent is extraordinary in Hard Rock Stadium tonight. Has all the makings for a historically epic National Championship Game.

Final Decision

These 2 teams are almost carbon copies of one another. A dynamic threesome on each offense with Smith, Jones and Harris, and Fields, Sermon and Olave, and complimentary players like Metchie, Billingsley and Forrestal for Alabama, and Wilson, Ruckert and Ferrell for Ohio State. The defenses have elite players on each unit, so they could make big plays, sacks causing fumbles, game changing interceptions, tackles for loss, stopping drives, so there is no shortage of talent on either one of these defenses.

So, its’ a tough call, because this is such a remarkable matchup of talent on one football field. After much deliberation, I like the Crimson Tide to be able to score one more touchdown than the Buckeyes. Give me the Crimson Tide in an all time classic National Championship Game. DeVonta Smith finishes off his illustrious career as a Crimson Tider as the MVP of the National Championship Game.

Alabama 42, Ohio State 38