Did Nick Saban's coordinator switch cost Alabama the title?

TAMPA, Fla. – Standing in an Alabama locker room that was equal parts shock and sadness, cornerback Marlon Humphrey attempted to explain what it was like trying to stop Clemson and the great Deshaun Watson time and time again.

Clemson ran 99 total plays in the national championship game, chance after chance for talent to shine and a defense to buckle. It was the second-to-last one, the 98th snap in the 59th second of the 59th minute that proved too much.

It was a 2-yard Watson touchdown pass with just a single second left on the clock that toppled the Alabama empire, giving Clemson a 35-31 victory and the national title. In the end, the vaunted Tide defense finally cracked, one too many Watson haymakers than they could slip.

“I just think, man, you’ve got to limit the number of times we’re throwing it to their offense,” Humphrey said. “They are just too good to just, [our] offense to get three and out. That’s no excuse.”

No, it’s not an excuse. It’s reality. Alabama kept playing with fire, kept watching its defense stand and then responding by having the offense slump through another three-and-outs and then asking the D to do it all over again.

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Riding a 26-game win streak, the Tide’s offense imploded (by its standards), capped with the firing of offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin and the elevation of former USC head coach Steve Sarkisian last week.

Sarkisian had been with the program as a non-coaching analyst and hadn’t called plays in a game in years. Now, in seven short days, he needed to be near perfect.

It didn’t go well. Or, at least not well enough, leaving Alabama with the ultimate “what-if” to consider for the ages: Did bouncing Kiffin cost a talented team a championship, or would this have been the same outcome, or perhaps even worse, if coach Nick Saban hadn’t boldly made the move?

“Was it challenging?” Saban said when asked after the game. “Yes. Did everyone involved handle it extremely well? Absolutely. … I think we scored 31 points in the game, which I think is pretty good against a pretty good defense that actually shut Ohio State out [in the national semifinal].”

The Tide did score that many points, but to Humphrey’s point, Alabama couldn’t control the clock, couldn’t give the defense a breather and couldn’t keep the dangerous Watson harmlessly on the sideline. This was a game that was begging to be put away. It never happened. For too much of the game, the Clemson offense was able to operate free of pressure, knowing another chance would come.

Alabama ran 66 plays, just two-thirds of the number the Tigers got off. It was outgained 376 to 511 and managed just 16 first downs. The Tide lost the time of possession battle by nearly 10 minutes (34:44-25:16). It was worse in the critical second half: Clemson got off 54 snaps to 29 for Alabama and the Tigers controlled the ball, 18:38 to 11:22.

There were 12 drives of five plays or less that resulted in a punt, including seven three-and-outs, many in the second half as a gassed Alabama defense began to falter.

In the first quarter, the Tide offense was set up via a fumble on the Clemson 35, and rather than busting the game open to a 14-0 lead, it proceeded to lose seven yards and punt.

Alabama led 24-14 in the second half. It was just one score, let alone a long, time-consuming drive, from salting the game away. Instead it went four-and-out, three-and-out and three-and-out, as Clemson kept mounting the comeback and eventually took the lead.

Alabama was daring Watson to beat it all night. Eventually he did. The Tide’s second-half offense was almost exclusively a 68-yard touchdown pass to O.J. Howard on blown coverage and the gutty, reclaim-the-lead drive in the final five minutes. Even then, Watson had one more chance.

“My first thought was, they can still win this,” Humphrey said. “I just know how good DeShaun Watson is.”

Saban was quick to downplay the changing of coordinators, putting it on the performance of the players against a formidable opponent.

“I think we had some drops,” Saban said. “I think we had some tipped balls. I think there were things that we could have done better. But I thought the preparation was good. I thought the organization was good. And I thought we gave our players a chance in this game to have success.”

Saban made the big decision, though, leaning on the significant bank of goodwill he enjoys after so many national titles. He’s earned that.

Still, the decision can’t be downplayed. The timing of the move alone was unprecedented. As wrong as it would be to say definitively that this cost Alabama the game and the title, it would be just as wrong to say definitively that it had no impact, even if there’s no telling what that impact was.

Maybe Kiffin, in the groove of calling winning game after winning game, would have delivered. Or maybe the offense that struggled against Washington in the semifinal, particularly the passing game behind Jalen Hurts, would have returned.

Maybe none of it mattered once big running back Bo Scarbrough went out with an injury. Maybe no one could have stopped Clemson’s Jadar Johnson or Ben Boulware or Kendall Joseph from disrupting everything.

“It’s hard to have total success against a team with a good defense,” running back Damien Harris said. “I thought we moved the ball well in parts of the game and in other parts we didn’t. Not to take anything away from them; we didn’t execute. They made plays on defense, we didn’t make plays on offense.”

Maybe this all goes back to Kiffin, who admitted he struggled to juggle the responsibilities of his new job as head coach of Florida Atlantic while also preparing Alabama as coordinator. That’s why he was let go, Saban risking the unknown to the known.

Or maybe Saban needed to stay the course and trust the process and stick with a guy who has a well-earned reputation for calling plays. One way or the other, the focus was going to be on the decision. And it always will be.

For Alabama, it comes in the worst possible circumstances, a desperate locker room full of players trying to explain it all away.

“Everything was smooth the whole week of practice,” wide receiver Gehrig Dieter said. “I mean, Sark has been here all season so it was a smooth transition. I think he called the game just like Coach Kiffin did.”

Maybe that was the problem.

Sixty-six plays for the Tide. Ninety-nine for the Tigers. That’s a lot of three-and-outs to explain away. That’s a lot of Deshaun Watson haymakers to handle.

One too many it turned out, one too many for even the mighty Alabama machine.