It's Alabama week and The College Football Nerds Youtube channel just released a new video about their preview of the CFP National Championship game between Alabama and Ohio State. I think they made a lot of rational points. Here are the key takeaways:

- The factor that allowed Ohio State to win against all odds was how effectively Ohio State was able to read and react to Clemson plays. The majority of these came through counter plays, where Lawrence would act like he was running in one direction but then a couple offensive lineman from the formation would pull across and the play would go in a completely different direction. Thankfully, our linebackers were experienced enough (Hilliard) to be able to read and react and see the lineman pulling and meet them point-blank for a loss of yards.

- An argument could be made that Ohio State has put in way too much effort into planning for Elliot's offense and Venables defense and that we were "artificially" good against Clemson because we were prepping for them for a long time. Our preparation will be completely different for Alabama: a lot more vertical concepts and no QB run's. It will be a complete reset for both teams in terms of preparation.

- All talk about comparing Alabama's win against Notre Dame to Ohio State's win against Clemson (and then how an argument could be made for how Ohio State is better than Alabama) should be stopped immediately. Saban knew that the game was never out of control and adjusted accordingly after the first few drives to make sure none of his players got injured and they didn't give out more film. They could have easily hung 50 or 60 on ND. On the other hand, Ohio State knew Trevor Lawrence, Etienne and Clemson have an explosive offense and we needed to be on our heels the entire game. 

More key points in the full video: