Oddly enough, a hot topic at SEC Media Days concerned a team that doesn’t even reside in the conference
If you are a Clemson Tiger fan, this past week was surely a fun one. You got to witness Nick Saban keep reaching on why his best team of all time was blown off the field in the national title game. Just more the same old, tired excuses, what else is new.
You got to see Alabama LB Dylan Moses taking the effort to discredit the Tigers blowout win one step further by claiming that Georgia, not Clemson, was the toughest opponent the Tide played in 2018, According to him, a team Alabama actually beat was tougher than the one that dismantled them by 28 points in a game for all the marbles. A game in which their opponent possessed the ball for the final 10 minutes plus, in a soul crushing, game ending, drive. Talk about a stretch.
You got to see number one SEC apologist and Nick Saban fanboy Paul Finebaum, go from playing a pot stirrer type role to full blown hypocrite. According to him, Clemson still doesn’t know how to win. When John Simpson responded to Dylan Moses’ Georgia comments by saying that Notre Dame was the Tigers toughest opponent, Finebaum called it “pettiness.” It was totally unacceptable for Simpson to say what he said but perfectly fine for Moses.
During the Alabama portion of the media sessions, only once did Saban or any of his players ever bother to mention the fact that they lost to a great team, and that was WR Jerry Jeudy, saying
“Yeah, it was a really tough loss last year. Clemson was a great team…”
You also got to see Gamecock head coach Will Muschamp angrily shut down a reporter who boldly asked if his team had become the little brother to the Clemson program. Newsflash, they’ve always been the Tigers little brother, that’s not something that’s just happened. As Dabo Swinney once boldly claimed in his infamous rant,
“This is not a rivalry. This is more of a domination. My kids grand kids will never see this rivalry be a rivalry.”
The look on Muschamp’s face after being asked the question was priceless, as he was obviously miffed.
If there were any lingering questions regarding the current pecking order in college football at the moment, there isn’t any longer. The SEC has been king for so long, they’ve not yet been able to come to terms with the fact that there’s a new big dog on the porch, and that dog goes by the name of Clemson. A big dog who at the moment takes a back seat to no one, not even the Mighty Crimson Tide. It’s safe to say that the SEC is officially broken at the moment.
Even the Missouri portion had a touch of Clemson flair with former Clemson QB Kelly Bryant in Hoover representing his new Tiger team. Bryant had this to say about his decision on transferring,
“It’s life…. it was tough in the moment. But I can’t thank Clemson enough for the opportunity they gave me to play there being a kid from South Carolina, playing for his hometown state. Just shaping me into who I am today.”
Not quite the same tone today as were the ill timed quotes he gave while still emotional just days after the decision. One thing I think most fans can agree on, hopefully we get to see him get one more W over UofSC.
