A comparison of the national finalists’ seasons points to a clear favorite for Monday night’s college football championship game.
The college football national championship game on Monday night matches two undefeated teams, Alabama and Clemson, both 14-0. It may seem hard to separate two teams that have swept all before them. But there are ways, and in the end, they point to one clear favorite in the game.
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Alabama and Clemson turned aside quite a few solid teams. Clemson had a slight edge, meeting 10 bowl teams to Alabama’s nine. But it isn’t difficult to make a bowl game these days. Using more exclusive criteria, Alabama clearly played a tougher schedule. It faced six teams in the final College Football Playoff top 25; Clemson faced three.
Computer evaluations of schedules agree: Jeff Sagarin’s, for example, ranks Alabama’s schedule as the 28th toughest in the country and Clemson’s 45th.
Both teams dealt out some whippings this season: Clemson won games by 61 and 60 points, Alabama by 55 and 50. Their average margins of victory were quite close, both about 31.5 points per game.
But whether a team wins by 50 or 60 proves less about its inherent quality and more about its style of play, its use of substitutes and its thirst for the jugular. The closer games are more revealing.
Each team had two games that it won by fewer than 20 points. Alabama beat Georgia in the Southeastern Conference championship game by 7.
