Ohio State vs Alabama College Football Playoff National Championship prediction and game preview.
Ohio State vs Alabama: College Football Playoff National Championship Broadcast
Date: Monday, January 11, 2021
Game Time: 8:00
Venue: Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, FL
Network: ESPN
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Ohio State (7-0) vs Alabama (12-0) Game Preview
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Three Reasons Why You Should Watch The College Football Playoff National Championship
– It’s Ohio State playing against Alabama. They’re two of the mightiest of the mighty college football programs, and at the moment – along with Clemson – they’re part of the three teams going that can reasonably set the expectations at the unrealistic national-title-or-failure level going into each campaign.
And yet, these two – and their 25 claimed national championship between them – going at it almost seems like a bit of a twist.
This was the fourth appearance in the College Football Playoff for Ohio State, it’s the sixth trip to the tournament in seven chances for Alabama, and yet in the CFP the two only met in the classic 42-35 Buckeye Sugar Bowl semifinal win in 2015.
Overall, it’s only the fifth meeting all-time with Alabama holding a 3-1 lead.
– Alabama has been unstoppable. It’s Nick Saban’s finest offense yet with a Heisman-finalist-to-Heisman-winner passing combination of QB Mac Jones and WR DeVonta Smith to go along with a running back in Najee Harris who finished sixth in the voting. How good is this attack? Arguably the team’s best player – WR Jaylen Waddle; more on him in a moment – went down early with an ankle injury, and the machine kept on rolling.
The Tide geared down in the College Football Playoff semifinal against Notre Dame, scoring 14 points out of the gate and cruising from there.
In between that and a 38-19 win over Missouri to start the season, the Tide scored 41 or more in every other game, the defense has been terrific – outside of the 52-46 SEC Championship fight with Florida and a fight with Ole Miss – and everything is in place for Saban to win his seventh national championship as a head coach. However, his 2009 team was the only one that finished a season unbeaten.
– Can Ohio State gear up the energy, emotion, and attitude again? It waited a full year to get another crack at the College Football Playoff after losing in painful fashion to Clemson in the Fiesta Bowl to end the 2019 season, and it played at a whole other level in the stunning 49-28 win in the Sugar Bowl.
Motivation can only carry a team so far – these Buckeyes have the talent, too.
Alabama might have the household, superstar names, but Ohio State has QB Justin Fields – who’s coming off his epic six-touchdown pass performance against Clemson – and it has every bit as much NFL talent as the team on the other side of the field.
The problem this year was continuity. The program could never get to 100% after a mediocre start, most of its offensive line was missing late in the year, and 22 players were out for the Big Ten Championship against Northwestern. The Clemson game was as close to normal as it’s been for these Buckeyes, and that’s the X factor in this year’s CFP.
We didn’t quite know what this team was capable of because we hadn’t seen it. It’s now all coming together at just the right time.
College Football Playoff National Championship
Why Ohio State will win the national title
Why Alabama will win the national title
What’s Going to Happen, Prediction, History