Yesterday, the talk of the Alabama vs. Clemson match up in the national title game revolved around the Alabama having more practice time at their disposal than the Tigers would have, based on a rather strange NCAA rule based around academic schedules.
Alabama's spring semeseter starts two days after the title game, on January 13, while Clemson's spring semester begins on January 6th. So up until today, NCAA rules say that Clemson is not restricted by the length of any practice or team meeting, but starting on Wednesday they'll be limited to a maximum of four hours a day.
But since Alabama's spring semester doesn't begin until after the title game, they are not restricted by the 20 hour per week rule. During last year's playoff, Ohio State (rather quietly) enjoyed the same benefit over Oregon...and we all know how that ended.
Clemson's Dabo Swinney was asked about the practice hour gap today on Mike and Mike, and offered the perfect response.
We'll have to wait until January 11th to see who got the most out of their practice time, but to Dabo, it's clearly not as big of a deal as everyone is making it out to be.