We had Alabama at 54 percent. Clemson won the title by 28.

We had Alabama at 54 percent to win the 2018 national title when the four-team field was set. Clemson beat the Crimson Tide 44–16 in the title game. By the end of the third quarter, Alabama's chance was 0.2 percent.

Why we had Alabama on top

Clemson was also 13–0, and its profile was nearly as strong. The Tigers rated 27.8 points better than average, won by 23.0 a game, played two games within eight points and won eight by more than 28. That 4.5-point gap was the difference between a coin flip and a clear favorite.

The bracket widened it. Alabama had an 80 percent chance against No. 4 Oklahoma in its semifinal. Clemson had a 70 percent chance against No. 3 Notre Dame, a 12–0 team that had played five games within eight points. Run the bracket out, and Alabama landed at 54 percent, Clemson at 31, Notre Dame at 8 and Oklahoma at 7.

Six weeks of standing still

Clemson spent the whole rankings season in second gear. When the first rankings came out on October 30, we had Alabama at 46 percent and Clemson at 31. The Tigers slipped to 27 percent with the Week 12 rankings, their low point of the season, while Alabama climbed to 51.

Around them, the board shifted. LSU dropped four spots to seventh. Notre Dame reached 11–0 and rose to 10 percent. Georgia climbed to fourth at 19 percent. Through all of it, Clemson's odds never left a band between 27 and 31 percent. By the final rankings, Alabama sat at 13–0 and 54 percent, and Clemson was right back where it started, at 31.

Two semifinals, two different games

The Orange Bowl was a different kind of game. Alabama jumped out to a 21–0 lead on Oklahoma, then let the Sooners back in. Oklahoma pulled within 31–20 after three quarters before Alabama closed out a 45–34 win. Even so, the Tide's road had held up the way the numbers said it would, and Clemson still entered the title game as the underdog at 38 percent.

How badly we missed

For a quarter, the title game looked like the matchup the ratings expected. Clemson led only 14–13 at one point. Then the Tigers pulled away, taking a 31–16 lead into halftime, and their odds jumped to 89 percent.

The second half was all Clemson. The Tigers made it 44–16 after three quarters, and Alabama's chance fell to 0.2 percent. Nobody scored after that. The team we had as the best in the field by 4.5 points lost by 28, the largest margin any single game can count for in how we rate teams.

That is a real miss. We had Alabama as the clear favorite because of how it won: big, often and almost never close. Clemson had nearly the same résumé, and on the one night that mattered, it was the better team by a wide distance.

From 31 percent to champion

Clemson's title chance moved from 31 percent when the field was set, to 37 at halftime of the Cotton Bowl, to 38 after the semifinals, to 89 at halftime of the final. The Tigers spent the season as the second-best team on our board, and they finished it as the best team in the sport.

The path

• Field set: No. 2 seed, 31 percent to win the title
• Semifinal: beat Notre Dame 30–3 (Cotton Bowl), led 23–3 at halftime
• After semifinals: 38 percent
• Title game: beat Alabama 44–16, led 31–16 at halftime