College Football Playoff: Can anyone stop the Tide?

We have whittled the field of national championship aspirants to four teams, and by late Saturday night the College Football Playoff will be down to two.

But even within this elite quartet, there is a distinct hierarchy.

There is Alabama, and then there is everyone else.

The Crimson Tide are the defending champions, undefeated and on a 25-game winning streak. Only once all season did an opponent come within one score of beating ‘Bama – Mississippi lost 48-43 in September. They have been so sufficiently dominant that some think this is Nick Saban’s best team – and he’s already coached five national champions.

So powerful is Alabama’s current grip on the sport that even the other playoff programs – Clemson, Ohio State and Washington – cannot deny their dominance.

“I feel it every day,” Buckeyes coach Urban Meyer said. “Everyone does.”

Alabama not only has been in all three of the College Football Playoffs, it has been the No. 1 seed in two of the three (Clemson was No. 1 last season; Alabama No. 2). Still, that does not guarantee victory, as Meyer knows.

“We got them one year,” he said, referring to Ohio State’s semifinal upset of the Tide on the way to the 2014 national title.

Can Washington pull a similar shocker Saturday in the first semifinal, the Peach Bowl? It’s not out of the question, but it’s improbable.

Huskies coach Chris Petersen is a fantastic coach who has scored some big victories in games where he has multiple weeks to prepare. His Boise State teams shocked Oklahoma in the legendary 2007 Fiesta Bowl, beat fourth-ranked TCU in the ’10 Fiesta, and handed Utah its only bowl loss in the last 20 seasons in 2011. Then there were the season-opening conquests of Oregon in 2009, Virginia Tech in ‘10 and Georgia in ’11.

But to win this game, Petersen will have to devise a way to handle an overpowering Alabama defensive front that has manhandled opposing offenses all season. The Tide has the nation’s No. 1 scoring defense, total defense and rushing defense, and is No. 4 in sacks.

If the Huskies’ offensive line cannot hold up against the ‘Bama onslaught, it will be a traumatic game for their star quarterback, Jake Browning. On the other side of the ball, Washington’s defense leads the nation in takeaways and must force Alabama freshman quarterback Jalen Hurts into some mistakes with the ball.

The two teams have one common opponent, USC. The Tide mauled the Trojans by 46; the Huskies lost to the Trojans by 13. Yes, it’s true that USC was vastly improved by the time it faced Washington late in the season after being blown out by ‘Bama in the season opener – but the line of scrimmage was a mismatch in favor of the Tide in September and a mismatch in favor of the Trojans against Washington in November.

The Fiesta Bowl matchup of Clemson and Ohio State looks much more even on paper. It would be a surprise if that game doesn’t go well into the fourth quarter before being decided.

The showdown between Heisman Trophy runner-up Deshaun Watson and the nation’s No. 1 receiving corps against the Buckeyes’ excellent secondary will be riveting. Ohio State leads the nation in pass-efficiency defense, but Clemson has as many as four receivers who may be NFL-caliber players in Mike Williams, Artavis Scott, Deon Cain and tight end Jordan Leggett.

Ohio State’s offense is more limited than Clemson’s because the Buckeyes have struggled in the passing game much of the year. Quarterback J.T. Barrett’s overall pass-efficiency rating has dropped every month, from a very sharp 184 in September to a very mediocre 129 in October and 128 in November. His accuracy and yards per attempt have declined every month as well.

Thus the Buckeyes must run well enough to stay out of third-and-long situations – and there is one statistical reason to believe they might be able to do that. Clemson’s first-down run defense is nothing special – the Tigers allow 4.6 yards per carry on first down, a surprisingly high number for an elite team (last year’s national runner-up Clemson team allowed just 3.2 yards per carry on first down). Ohio State averages a healthy 5.8 yards per first-down run.

If the Buckeyes can win first down on the ground, they might well win the game.

Whoever wins the Fiesta Bowl, chances are very good they will find Alabama waiting for them in Tampa in the College Football Playoff championship game Jan. 9.

The Crimson Tide is rampaging toward a fifth undisputed title in eight years, which would be an unprecedented run in the history of the sport. It will take an incredible performance by one of the three other playoff teams to knock them off.