Back in 2016 — an eon ago in college football terms — Alabama and Clemson squared off in the title game of the second College Football Playoff. That national championship game in Arizona was one of those classic big-on-big battles, a heavyweight title fight that was tied at 24-24 early in the fourth quarter. Then Alabama did the unexpected, exploiting a hole in Clemson’s special teams by kicking a surprise onside kick. The Tide recovered the kick, scored, and never trailed again.
Nearly nine years later, Clemson has an opportunity to pull a similar reversal on Alabama this weekend, and just like that night in 2016, nobody saw it coming.