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SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- If you're going to slay this beast, you sort of envision making crazy plays at the end to do it.

You know, the way Deshaun and the boys did it two years ago in Tampa.

Alabama has all those national titles. It has Nick Saban. It supposedly has more freak athletes.

But a superhuman effort is no longer necessary for Clemson to prevail over the college football's Death Star.

Not just chip away at it, but blow the damn thing to bits in a 44-16 demolition.

Forty-four to freaking sixteen.

Maybe a few of these coaches and players, in their wildest dreams, envisioned turning Silicon Valley into Death Valley for Saban's killing machine.

But we're thinking not.

Beating these guys is hard enough. Beating their brains in? With everything on the line?

Demoting Ala-freaking-Bama to the ROY Bus?

The smiles on the faces of Trevor Lawrence and Justyn Ross -- during and after that mind-bending drive of throwing and catching that made it 44-16 late in the third -- said it all.

This was like some sort of dream. The Tigers go from hanging on for dear life in the first quarter to squeezing the life out of the most dominant dynasty in college football history.

And a year after Alabama grabbed another national title with a sensational freshman, Clemson stepped on the Tide's throats with two more.

Trevor Lawrence and Justyn Ross.

My God. Two freshmen.

Dabo Swinney has been dreaming big since he got the job 10 years ago as a receivers coach who'd never even run an offense.

More recently, Swinney taught everyone that it was possible to play with Alabama.

Then he taught everyone it was possible to beat them.

Now, the biggest step of all: The inescapable reality that little 'ole Clemson has become precisely the kind of cold-blooded killer that Alabama has been for so long.

Two days ago, Brent Venables made Alabama's offense sound unstoppable. And they have been for everyone else.

As it turned out, Clemson's offense better fit what Venables was describing. After Oklahoma went up and down the field on the Tide in the second half of the Orange Bowl, the Tigers did as they pleased through the air with Lawrence and his receivers making it look easy.

The outside world wondered if the biggest stage of all would finally bring a "freshman moment" for Lawrence. As it turned out, Tua Tagovailoa had those jittery moments -- the pick-six to A.J. Terrell on the Tide's first possession, and one by Trayvon Mullen on a deep ball inside Clemson's 10 in the second quarter.

The Tigers made the Tide pay for that one, too, after Mullen returned it 46 yards to midfield.

Fourteen points off turnovers is a big deal in a game like this. It was enough to give Clemson loads of momentum at halftime, up 28-16.

But those two interceptions weren't the story of this game. Not when Lawrence and his receivers administered surgery on Alabama's secondary with breathtaking throws and catches.

Not when Clemson's defense finally settled down, found itself and summoned the might to turn back the Tide when it reached the Tigers' red zone.

Not when Clemson's offensive line, thought to be at a disadvantage against Quinnen Williams and those grown men who made life miserable for the Tigers' offense a year ago in New Orleans, gave Lawrence more than enough protection to throw.

Bama came back from double-digit halftime deficits this season against Georgia, and last season against the Bulldogs on the same stage.

It wasn't happening this time. Not against this big orange monster.

There are so many superlatives in the wake of this that they all run together.

Two years ago when they knocked off the Tide in Tampa, it felt like the culmination of an era involving great offensive players who were headed to the NFL.

Now, as Swinney has said so often in recent years, the best seems truly yet to come. Because Lawrence and all those guys who looked like men against Bama's boys are going nowhere.

First 15-0 team in college football since forever. Second national title in three years.

Everything about the past few days felt weird, with this showdown being played at a place that doesn't care much about college football.

They went to the farthest spot possible away from college football's heartland to rip the heart out of the Bama beast.

#DLU.

#WRU.

#TrevorU.

#NattyU.

Coming out all this way makes more sense now.

It's a Golden Gate to a Dabo Dynasty.

And the Tigers are no longer on the Rest of Y'all Bus as they coast through it.

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