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For quite a while on the night of Jan. 7 in Santa Clara, the breakneck pace and scoring felt like something we'd never seen before.
Well, in truth we had seen it less than two months earlier. But that was in the NFL, when the Rams outlasted the Chiefs 54-51 in an unforgettable spectacle of offensive firepower.
It sure felt like this national championship game was headed in the same direction, with two absurdly talented defenses putting up not a whole lot of resistance against two otherworldly offenses.
What happened next, after the first quarter ended with Alabama up 14-13, depends on your perspective.
If you're a Clemson fan, your grown-man defense began to overwhelm and confuse the Crimson Tide when it reached the red zone.
If you're an Alabama fan, your offense couldn't get out of its own way on those trips inside Clemson's 20.
The truth, as usual, is probably somewhere in between.
