I thought early in the game we were outplaying Clemson. The breaks went the other way with the fumble that wasn't, the fumble that was and a dropped pass or two early on. Not capitalizing on early opportunities certainly changed the complexion of the game and when Love when down, the wheels came off. Having said that, we got beat by a better team and if we played a perfect game and got some breaks, maybe we would have had a chance, but 9 out of 10 times they beat us. We aren't as far off as the score indicated, but Alabama wasn't as far off as indicated either. The difference was they made big plays regularly and we didn't. They looked like a team that was confident it would win and we got flustered in the spotlight (as did Alabama, the coaches at least).

Given the NC game results, I could have seen us rated as high as 2 or 3, but it doesn't really matter because once you get to the playoffs, only finishing 1 matters. A final ranking in the top 10 is a consolation prize for teams that didn't make the playoff, but it should help with recruiting, so I guess that's good.