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This story appears in ESPN The Magazines Dec. 26 / Jan. 2 Issue. Subscribe today!AN HOUR BEFORE the sidelines at the SEC championship game are lined with Southern football dignitaries. All available previous MVPs of SEC title games are here, along with current coaches of teams that didnt make the game and a pair of television news desks, one from ESPN, the other from CBS.Retiring play-by-play man Verne Lundquist greets a receiving line of well-wishers at the CBS desk, all while sidestepping Alabamas warm-up drills. The defending national champ is preparing for a game it will win 54-16 over Florida to remain undefeated and formalize its invitation to the College Football Playoff.These dudes are so big its a little scary, says former Gators QB Danny Wuerffel, extending his hand after waiting in line.No, Uncle Verne replies. Whats scary is that most of them are still teenagers.Anyone who bought the 2016 college football preview magazines last summer will remember the questions. How will Alabama replace Heisman Trophy winner Derrick Henry? How will the Crimson Tide account for losing quarterback Jake Coker, a 23-year-old transfer from Florida State with five years experience? How will they replace 11 starters? (Those questions were posed in ESPN The Magazines preview by the same scribe you are reading right now.)Alabama entered the season with the SECs least experienced roster. Ohio State did the same in the Big Ten. Ditto for Clemson: bottom of the ACC. But it was actually much starker than that. Phil Steele, the king of preseason mags, uses a five-part formula to determine experience, and he ranked the Tide roster 116th out of 128 FBS teams. Clemson was ranked 101st. Ohio State was dead last at 128th.So if youre scoring at home -- and recruits are -- then three of this years best four teams were also among its youngest, somehow surviving one of the most unpredictable regular seasons in recent memory. The holdout is Washington. The Pac-12 champ ranked fourth in its conference and 43rd overall in experience, with only four returning senior starters but a whopping 80 percent of the roster having already played enough to earn a varsity letter.It really does go against what I guess youd call conventional coaching wisdom, says Ohio State coach Urban Meyer, who returned two senior starters from his 2015 team that went 12-1 and finished the year ranked fourth in the AP poll. This year the team is 11-1 and will play Clemson in the CFP semifinals. But I would also say, OK, who are those two seniors and who are your juniors? I like those juniors I have in the middle of my defense. And I really like that junior I have under center leading my offense in J.T. Barrett.They say the same at Clemson about their quarterback, Deshaun Watson. Along with his fellow juniors -- running back Wayne Gallman and wide receiver Mike Williams -- hes had to carry a roster heavy on underclassmen to a much higher degree of difficulty than a year ago, when Clemson pushed Alabama in the title game.I know its a cliché to talk about having another coach out on the field, but thats what Deshaun is, says Clemsons actual coach, Dabo Swinney. In the end, we can only run so many drills, watch so much film and install so many plays. When those young guys are out there and its time to actually run those plays, then its Deshaun who is looking them in the eyes. Freshmen or not, they are going to do what they have to do to not let him down.That pressure of not wanting to become the weak link in the chain is indeed a great motivator. A kid who spent the past few seasons watching Watson lead Clemson to a stack of prime-time wins doesnt want to be the one who causes that pipeline to rupture.And that brings us back to Alabama.My single biggest fear every day was that I did not want to be the guy who caused the winning to stop, Henry says. Standing along that same Georgia Dome sideline watching his former Tide teammates, he is straight-faced serious. He recalls his freshman year in 2013, joining the team as it came off consecutive BCS national championships and its third in four years. One year removed from high school, he carried the football just 36 times. Upperclassmen incessantly reminded him of his responsibilities.So did his phone. It was blowing up all the time with texts and calls from former Alabama players, Henry says. You better listen to the coaches, you better keep this going, you better stick with the Process. I didnt even know these guys. But now I do the same thing. Ill be doing it here tonight.Ah yes, the Process. When Nick Saban used to drop his trademark mantra, it was greeted by those outside Tuscaloosa -- and some inside the city limits -- with eye rolls and bingo calls of Drink! Such attitudes have since vanished, pounded into the ground by the win-loss record that has also buried Bamas SEC rivals. In the early days, when hed visit the living rooms of recruits, Saban would preach the programs relentless attention to every detail as a way to shed light on his grandiose plans. But now that those plans have come to historic fruition, that speech has changed. Either youre on board with the Process or you arent. Not on board? Enjoy your time playing elsewhere. If you are, well need your ring size.There is a way we do things at Alabama and they arent easy, but we arent looking for players who are looking for easy, Saban explained in February on national signing day after inking a class ranked second best in the nation by ESPN.com. I think what weve been able to accomplish here makes it easy for kids to identify what we are about. If they think they can fit into that, and we think they can fit into that, then I think the potential benefits are fairly evident.Thats code for Why yes, at Alabama we love five-star athletes. But only the ones who can hack it.The crown jewel in that 2016 recruiting class was a quarterback from the Houston area named Jalen Hurts, the son of a high school football coach. Hurts size and strength were off the charts, as were his football IQ and his academic record. Per Sabans freshman policies, the 18-year-old doesnt talk to reporters. An early enrollee, he already played the role of Watson as his new team practiced to play Clemson in the title game last January. Now he has a chance to lead his team to a victory in this years version of that same game and become the first true freshman QB to win a national title since Oklahomas Jamelle Holieway in 1985.People say, Well, how can you win with a freshman quarterback? says Alabama radio color commentator Phil Savage, a former NFL general manager who deals with college footballs best players annually as executive director of the Senior Bowl. But they arent doing it with just any old freshman quarterback. Jalen Hurts is special. He fits. And Alabama is fortunate enough to be in a position where they dont just sign five-star recruits. They sign the ones that fit.That fortunate position Bamas in is the top, where the view is nice and the shopping list nicer. Over the past four years, Bama has inked classes ranked first, first, first and second. Ohio State has never dropped below seventh, while Clemson has spent the past two years in the top eight. Only heavyweights like them can afford not to play the waiting game with their prospects. Because while beggars cant be choosers, choosers rarely have to be beggars.Sure, college coaches will tell you that todays high school recruits arrive more football-ready than ever before, thanks to prep programs that have become more aggressive with both their playbooks and their training programs. But experience still matters for nearly all the rest of college football. Washington, which has hovered from 19th to 45th in recruiting, needs its players to stick around. Colorado went worst to first in the Pac-12 South with its experience-heavy roster (ninth in the nation), and Michigan State did the complete opposite in the Big Ten as it hit the bottom of its cycle as an annual fifth-year-player factory. According to Steele, the Spartans were ranked 117th in the nation in experience and 13th in the Big Ten. They finished 3-9.The goal is to create an environment of winning, Saban explains in what sounds like total coachspeak but is in fact, well, fact. Seniors and alums expect a certain level of success, and in turn, they teach the kids who have just arrived to expect that level of success. Only a certain type of young man can handle that. And if you can handle that, then it doesnt matter how old you are.But it does matter where you play. Wholesale Football Jerseys Throwback . The lawyers filed a 33-page amended complaint Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan, expanding on the suit originally filed Oct. 3 in New York Supreme Court. Arbitrator Fredric Horowitz last week refused to compel Selig to testify in the grievance, and Rodriguez then walked out of the hearing without testifying. Clearance Football Jerseys Throwback . Still, Brewers manager Ron Roenicke thought taking him out before the fifth inning was an unusual move. "Im looking up at the board and hes got two hits given up and one run, and Im taking him out after the fourth inning," Roenicke said. http://www.cheapfootballthrowback.com/ . He was followed closely by David Clarkson, donning red, seconds later. Clarksons actions one night earlier, leaping off the bench in defence of Kessel during a pre-season game against the Buffalo Sabres, will cost him the first 10 games of the regular season. Cheap Football Jerseys Throwback China . He said Tuesday thats a big reason why he is now the new coach of the Tennessee Titans. Whisenhunt said he hit it off quickly with Ruston Webster when interviewing for the job Friday night. Custom Football Jerseys Throwback . After Gasquet beat fifth-seeded Ivan Dodig of Croatia 7-5, 6-3, Tsonga followed up with a 6-7 (3), 6-2, 6-2 win against sixth-seeded Edouard Roger-Vasselin in an all-French match. ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- Coach Rex Ryan confirmed Monday that Buffalo Bills outside linebacker Shaq Lawson will return from a shoulder injury to practice Wednesday and could make his debut Sunday against the Miami Dolphins.Well see if he plays, Ryan said. I thought initially, Im like, Yeah, we waited this long for our first-round pick, but we got to do the smart thing and do whats best for the young man, also.Lawson, the No. 19 overall selection in Aprils draft, spent the first six weeks of the regular season on the physically unable to perform list. Monday was the first day that Lawson was eligible to return to practice. Once he practices Wednesday, the Bills will have 21 days to activate Lawson to their 53-man roster.Veteran Lorenzo Alexander?has started in Lawsons place in the Bills first six games. Alexander, a longtime special-teams contributor for several teams, leads the NFL with 8.0 sacks and will retain his starting role after Lawson returns to the active roster, Ryan said Monday.A formeer Clemson standout, Lawson was expected to be an opening-day starter in Buffalos 3-4 defense when the Bills made him their first-round pick in April.ddddddddddddLawson insisted immediately after being drafted that he would not need surgery on his right shoulder, but ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter reported that Lawson aggravated the pre-existing condition while making a swim move on a tackling dummy in a noncontact drill during rookie minicamp.Wide receiver Marcus Easley, who remains on the physically unable to perform list with a serious knee injury suffered last December, and rookie receiver Kolby Listenbee, who remains on the non-football injury list after sports hernia surgery, are also eligible to return to practice this week. But Ryan was unsure Monday whether either player would be cleared. The Bills have until Nov. 21 for both players to resume practicing. ' ' '