Nick Saban eyes his sixth national championship, closes in on Paul 'Bear' Bryant

Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant

Alabama will play Clemson in the College Football Playoff Championship Game this coming Monday night. The game is set to start at 7 p.m. and will be televised nationally on ESPN.

I suspect that more than a few of our readers will be glued to the TV set for that game, and if nothing happens, I plan to be among those numbers. As of Monday evening, Alabama was favored by less than a touchdown in the game, and it’ll be interesting to see if that number changes any over the course of the coming week.

Alabama seemed to get off to a slow start against Washington in Saturday’s Peach Bowl, but we should all remember that Washington had a very good team, one of the best in the nation. They’d had a significant time to prepare for Alabama and were well-rested. Despite Alabama’s slow start and everything Washington had going in its favor, the Huskies still lost by 17 points.

Also on Saturday, Clemson blasted Ohio State, 31-0, in the Fiesta Bowl, leaving Alabama fans with a lot of questions.

Is Clemson just that good or was Ohio State overrated? Did Clemson use the time off leading up to the game to come up with some sort of masterplan to upset Ohio State? Was Ohio State overconfident and looking past Clemson? Will Clemson have anything left in the tank when the play Alabama?

Perhaps only time will tell, but one thing is for sure, Clemson will have its hands full against Alabama on Monday, especially if Alabama smooths out some of the wrinkles was saw against Washington.

Personally, I’m hoping to see Nick Saban win his sixth National Championship, which will bring him one national title closer to Paul “Bear” Bryant, who won seven national titles in his career. It will sound sacrilegious to some Alabama fans, but I think the only way that Saban can prove that he is the greatest college football coach of all time is for him to win more national titles than Bryant. In order to pass Bryant, Saban will have to win three more titles. Then and only then will Saban be able to say that he’s the greatest college coach of all time.

Whether Saban can do so remains to be seen, but his track record speaks for itself. In any event, for Alabama fans, it’ll be a lot of fun to watch if he, in fact, remains at Alabama long enough to will three more national titles.

I think it should be noted that Saban has a long way to go to top Bryant’s all-time coaching record. As of Monday, Saban is 205-60-1 as a college coach. Bryant was 323-85-17 as a head coach. Perhaps it’s significant that Saban has already won five titles with only 205 victories under his belt.

In the end, I like Alabama’s chances against Clemson. If Alabama plays to its full potential, doesn’t make a lot of mistakes or turnovers, they could potentially blow out Clemson as bad as Clemson blew out Ohio State.