Ohio State vs Alabama 10 Thoughts, Live Updates, Reactions: National Championship Pregame

Ohio State vs Alabama: 10 thoughts, live updates, reactions during the College Football Playoff National Championship.

Ohio State vs Alabama: 10 thoughts, live updates, reactions during the College Football Playoff National Championship.

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Ohio State vs Alabama: College Football Playoff National Championship

Ohio State vs Alabama 10 thoughts, live updates, reactions: Pregame

Changing up my ultra-pretentious College Football Playoff National Championship game notes for tonight’s Ohio State showdown vs. Alabama. They’ll be done on the fly with ten reactions, updates and thoughts per quarter in what I’m hoping and praying will be something excellent.

For anyone new to the bit, I’ve been doing these for over 20 years for various outlets. I’ve done them ten feet away from Deshaun Watson. I’ve done them in the back of the end zone for Georgia vs. Alabama. I’ve done them in a hospital room. I’ve done them in a Potbelly’s. I’ve done them while hammered with the flu under ten blankets while watching Vince Young put on a performance for the ages against USC.

Tonight, I’m not doing them from Miami. That sucks.

So here we go with the pregame and all the fun starting in just a bit.

There are two types of people in the college football media world. Those who went to Miami to cover this, and everyone else. To let you in on a little secret – in the all-digital era, there’s absolutely no reason to actually attend these events in person anymore other than to 1) get away from your family, 2) hang in the bar with other media members and 3) get free stuff.

I can not adequately convey the level of whining going on from so many media types – especially me – can’t go to Miami this year and next year’s College Football Playoff is in … Indianapolis. In January. However, after growing up in Minneapolis and having been to several Final Fours, cold weather big events can be an absolute blast if you enjoy bars. The event people go out of their way to make sure you have a great time to distract you from not being some place awesome.

Okay … the game. After waffling all week long and trying to cover my butt – I really do like this Bama team and it could absolutely be amazing – I’m diving in. Ohio State, outright, over on the 74.

It’s amazing how many people are acting like Alabama is playing some directional MAC school. This is Ohio State. It has as much talent as Alabama, it’s every bit the same sort of monster program – if not bigger – and it has the five-star, NFL talents across the board to hang.

So why the 8.5 point spread? What’s crazy is how it’s just not budging. It’s shocking that there’s not a flock of late money coming in on the Buckeyes with such a huge spread for a game that really is more even than it seems. There appears to still be the thought out there that the Ohio State win over Clemson wasn’t fluky, but it was an outlier.

No, really, so why the 8.5 point spread? We’re all used to Alabama blowing out teams this season. It has the Heisman winner. It has Mac Jones. It has Najee Harris. It has Nick Saban. It’s ALABAMA, and it ripped through the season like it was all a light scrimmage. Ohio State struggled to beat Indiana and Northwestern.

It can’t be stressed enough how Ohio State was never quite right this year. Every team dealt with COVID issues, but the Buckeyes just never seemed to be right. They were missing a ton of players late in the year and didn’t have a full offensive line for most of the season. This is the second game in a row that it’s close to right.

For everyone who keeps whining about being bored of Alabama and are sort of sick of Ohio State being great, we got LSU last year and Georgia a few years ago. That’s not exactly going wacky, but really, you wish Cincinnati was here playing the Buckeyes?

Remember, you can’t Cinderella your way into the College Football Playoff National Championship. This isn’t some gimmicky thing like the NCAA Tournament. This isn’t an EVERYONE gets in thing like the NBA and NHL playoffs seem to be, and this isn’t a one-hot-pitcher bad break thing like the MLB playoffs. If you’re here, you had to do something incredible during the season and then beat an awesome team in the semis.

So enjoy the greatness. Yeah, it’s like Darth Vader vs. Hans Gruber, but these two have the ability to do something special. They have the potential to put on a 45-41 show. They have the talent to give you a college football national championship to go up against anything the sport has seen in over 150 years.

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