Why Alabama's loss is good for college football

In what felt like a heavyweight title fight from opening gun to final whistle, Clemson answered Alabama at every turn. Down by 10 points at two separate junctures in the second half, Deshaun Watson and the Tigers fought and clawed back against not just an undefeated No. 1-ranked program, but against a burgeoning juggernaut.

College football had been clamoring for a team to truly test Alabama. What the Crimson Tide got, in the end, was more than a test, they were felled by a team led by a truly transcendent quarterback.

Nick Saban’s ascension to the coaching throne has been delayed by at least one season. Bear Bryant spent a quarter-century roaming the sidelines in Tuscaloosa, and when it was all said and done he’d acquired six national championships. Nick Saban remains at five titles, four in a decade in T-Town, but Monday wasn’t about him.

In many ways, it was about Clemson’s struggle to reach the class of the elites in college football. Their trials in this particular game was emblematic of the program’s slow climb to the top. Brick by brick Dabo Swinney has built the Tigers into champions.

This is what college football needed. As Rece Davis said after the game, “the sequel was better than the original.” The last-second victory shattered Alabama’s aura of invincibility and has given not only Clemson, but 15-20 other programs in the nation, hope. Penn State, USC, and Florida State will receive plenty of attention this offseason, and now they won’t have to labor under the daunting question of “can you unseat a dynasty and derail a potential three-peat?” Each program now has a clean slate, able to operate in the sun instead of under the looming shadow of the Crimson Tide program.

Quite simply, the conversation is more interesting. Alabama made winning routine; this upset throws a brick of dynamite into an already unpredictable sport. And the game as a whole is better for it.

Instead of incessant three-peat talk, we can look forward to the first truly wide open season of college football since 2012 when three teams (USC, Alabama, LSU) all entered the fall with sizable national championship hype. Watson’s game-winning drive pumped life into offseason articles and talk shows coast-to-coast. He may be basking under the confetti in Tampa but it’s the sport as a whole which should be celebrating. The college football universe has wiggled free of Saban’s grasp and every last fan can now in unison say: we can’t wait for 2017.