Nick Saban details why Alabama lost College Football Playoff title game to Clemson in 2019

Nick Saban coached Alabama and LSU in 12 “playoffs” — he’s lumped in the four BCS title games he won with eight College Football Playoff appearances — and he recalls only one time where his team just got outclassed.

That would be the championship game of the College Football Playoff against Clemson, played on Jan. 7, 2019, at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. During one of his regular appearances on The Pat McAfee Show on Wednesday, Saban added some details as to why that loss — his second to the Tigers in a CFP title game — was so lopsided.

As Saban tells it, a cross-country travel schedule going from the Orange Bowl in Miami days before the new year, to Tuscaloosa briefly, then to the Bay Area led into a snafu with practice, which ultimately contributed to a 44-16 loss at the hands of Clemson.

“And I always felt like — expect for one time when we played Oklahoma in Miami in the Orange Bowl,” Saban said, as he discussed postseason CFP wins and losses. “And then we had to go to, out there to California to play Clemson and we go out there four days before the game so it was a tough trip, there was eight days in between games. It was as far away as we could be. The travel was tough. The preparation was tough and then we go out there and it rained and there was no place in San Jose to practice so we didn’t get to practice and we got our ass handed to us. That’s the only game that I felt like we just got beat.”

That title game loss to Clemson appeared to be shaping up as a similar back-and-forth showdown to the first two times the teams had met in the national championship, with the Tigers leading 14-13 after a quarter. But the Tigers poured it on from there, outscoring the Crimson Tide 30-3 in the final three quarters as quarterback Trevor Lawrence put on a show for 347 yards and three touchdowns and the Clemson defense stifled Alabama’s offense.

And for all his wins and more than a handful of championship rings, a lot of postseason losses hang in Saban’s mind. He thinks about what could’ve been.

“People talk about the seven that we won, but I focus on the five that we lost, whether we got beat in the championship game or the playoffs in the first round. And most of the time, it was something that we could’ve done better. It was something that was avoidable. And that’s the hardest thing when you’re a competitor, whether it’s a coach or player, if you lose because of something that you could’ve avoided through better preparation or better knowledge and experience.”

But against the Tigers that night, Saban thinks with the aid of some hindsight, his team might just have not had much of a chance.