Good luck, counting on you, Clemson

Published 6:27 am Sunday, January 8, 2017

No pressure, Clemson.

It’s just that we’re all depending on you — only the entire free world, peace on Earth, the future of our children, and, most importantly, college football.

It’s all hanging in the balance. Mankind awaits. Twitter, too. Possibly Instagram.

Fast-forward to the cockpit in “Airplane” — Good luck, we’re all counting on you.

Somebody somehow some way, has to stop this Alabama menace before it’s too late, if it’s not already.

It’s hit critical mass with no signs of letting up, and another projected No. 1 recruiting class is headed to Tuscaloosa.

Nick Saban isn’t the tyrant you think he is, but believe this: he won’t be happy or satisfied until he’s swallowed up the whole college football landscape and made it bow down and say uncle.

And he never, ever gets complacent.

Forget about that.

He won’t be happy until there’s no debate on the capstone “relative to” himself and a certain Bear Bryant. To some of us, it’s already a closed case, but Tide fans can be a stubborn, persnickety lot. It’s already splitting families apart.

So it’s not about winning anymore, apparently. It’s certainly not about money. It’s about leaving the game — though no time soon — with nothing but a giant dust storm in the Crimson wake.

Good luck, we’re all counting on you.

It’s probably now or never, Clemson.

The future surely looks bleak — Saban is likely recruiting telepathically even as we speak.

He’s always the smartest guy in the room, but he likes lots of really good players, just to take any possible mystery out of the equation.

The Alabama quarterback, lad named Jalen Hurts, is a freshman this year — a freshman. Never mind he doesn’t act like it. A true freshman, at that. And if he ever learns to throw a strike, it’s game over.

So, Clemson, this may the last-gasp chance for you to free the college football universe from the crunch of his thumb.

Good luck, we’re all counting on you.

This College Football Playoff showed promise early on.

Alabama lost to Ohio State in the first semifinal game it played in when the bracket thing debuted in 2014.

Voil?. Maybe a playoff was the answer.

Sadly, it’s looking more and more like a freak of nature. Evidently, it only annoyed him.

The next semifinal, 2015, was a 38-0 shellacking of a good Michigan State team that actually thought, poor thing, it had a chance.

Washington didn’t fare much better last week in this year’s semifinals, although the Huskies managed to hang around longer than Saban was apparently comfortable with.

Washington was never a threat in a 24-7 game, but Saban was irked enough to do an autopsy anyway. He apparently found his offense dragging down his beloved “process.”

It turned out that Little Lord Lane Kiffin, the odd-couple offensive coordinator, might possibly somehow have been preoccupied just a teeny tad by taking the Florida Atlantic head coaching job in advance of finishing his chores with this season’s Tide stampede.

They kept a straight face while calling it a “mutual decision.”

But recall the line from “The Godfather” — You won’t be seeing him around here anymore.

So Saban goes into the national championship with a new play-caller to glare at with Steve Sarkisian.

It surely wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction — Saban doesn’t roll like that — so it will probably will work.

And we all know you only need get the Tide to the championship game to see the full force of its …

… Wait a minute.

Clemson, how could we forget? You didn’t win. But you were right there last year in the championship, 45-40, a classic in which the final score was certainly no fluke.

It could have gone either way — play the “time-just-ran-out” card — but there’s surely no need to feel intimidated (just beware the onside kick this time).

You’ll have the best quarterback in the game, and fortunately Deshaun Watson did not win the Heisman Trophy for that jinx to kick in.

He only threw for 405 yards and four scores last week against Ohio State. Also ran for 73.

He gave Bama fits in this game last year. Saban probably studied him all summer, and he does tend throw it up for grabs, where the Tide’s favorite extracurricular activity is pick-sixing.

But at least there’s a blueprint.

Good luck, we’re all counting on you.

Maybe we’re grasping at straws here, but this game Monday is kind of like a rematch.

It was last year, different teams, but at least it was the same laundry.

Saban knows how that works out from 2011 when he got a mulligan against LSU in the title game to avenge the regular-season loss in the Game of the Century.

The roles are reversed for him this time. A stretch, maybe, but play that revenge card, Clemson. It’s a powerful force.

Saban’s “process” probably has a chapter to cover it, but it’s worth a shot.

Good luck, we’re all counting on you.

And, Clemson, it says here that you’re going to do it.