Meet Clemson, America's New Favorite College Football Team

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — I'm guessing ESPN's ratings-conscious brass won't agree with this, but I couldn't be happier to see Clemson playing for the national championship. The Tigers are new, fun and exciting. They are the perfect contrast to the Alabama winning machine.

There was something refreshing, almost innocent in Clemson's unrestrained, euphoric celebration after it beat Oklahoma 37-17 in the Orange Bowl on Saturday.

Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

Sure, you always see that after big games on TV. But with the blue bloods of sports, teams look for the TV cameras, then run and celebrate in front of them. It comes from experience. The Clemson players were celebrating randomly all over the place. They weren't playing to any cameras—they were too caught up in the moment to care. It was pure and genuine, college sports at its finest. 

I know people like their dynasties. Alabama and Ohio State and Notre Dame and USC and Oklahoma. But it can get a little stale when you just keep seeing the same people and the same teams in the same jerseys all the time. That perhaps is why Clemson, the No. 1 team in the country trying to be the first team ever to go 15-0, was given the early time slot Thursday, with Alabama-Michigan State in prime time.

Whatever.

Just take some joy in this Clemson team with its goofball, good-guy of a head coach in Dabo Swinney, who told Bleacher Report, "We're new blood, that's for sure.''

Tigers defensive coordinator Brent Venables, who used to be an assistant for Serious Stoops at Oklahoma but found a more natural fit for his goofy personality with Dabo, probably said it best when he told me, "Who doesn't want to Pull for the Paw?''

Joshua S. Kelly-USA TODAY Sports

The point is that when a team like Clemson gets to the cusp like this, it feels more authentic than when a football factory does it, more personal. It is simply hard not to root for the Tigers.

"There's an innocence about what we're doing and the way we've done it." Venables said. "We're not Johnny-come-lately now; he [Swinney] has been building this program for seven years now.

"But that was something I was very attracted to when I came here: an authenticity, a genuineness, a purity about everything.''

There's just something about a team like this breaking the expectations, even its own. Venables said this team was all about proving the doubters wrong...and that he, admittedly, had been one of them.

From here, you might wonder if Clemson can get to the blue-blood level. Until now, it had been known more for getting close, but not quite there, for getting to the big moment and "Clemsoning," a nasty term for choking.

Most likely, losing in big moments was the product of expectations. It's hard to get over your past. But, every great champion must defeat its inner demons to truly arrive.

With Clemson 60 minutes from a national title, it's safe to say the Tigers have vanquished their demons and the "Clemsoning" term can officially be retired.

"They know who we are now,'' running back Wayne Gallman said. 

If the Tigers beat Alabama on Jan. 11, we may have to re-evaluate their role as the lovable outsider. But there's no reason to talk about that stuff now. Just enjoy the fresh, new jersey colors, the joy and the dancing.

Greg Couch covers college football for Bleacher Report.