Good morning. This is LEADOFF, today’s early look at Atlanta sports.
Alabama and Florida State will meet in a season-opening Chick-fil-A Kickoff game on Sept. 2 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Will the same two teams return to Atlanta on Jan. 8 to meet in the College Football Playoff national championship game?
Rece Davis, host of ESPN’s College GameDay show, says he “absolutely” thinks so.
“You’ll see Alabama-Florida State in September, and you’ll see them again in January,” he said while in Atlanta for an ESPN college football production seminar this week.
But Desmond Howard, an analyst on College GameDay, doesn’t think so.
“No, I just don’t think those things go as scripted that way,” said Howard, rejecting his colleague’s prediction of a rematch. “That’s the only logic: They don’t go as scripted.”
Well, first things first: As season openers go, this one is about as compelling as they come. In fact, in a news release Wednesday about GameDay’s decision to broadcast from Atlanta on Sept. 2, the Chick-fil-A Kickoff folks wrote that Alabama-Florida State “could be the Greatest Opener of All Time (GOAT), with early projections indicating that this game may be a matchup of the two highest-ranked teams to ever play on opening weekend in 149 years of college football.”
The preseason coaches' poll will be released at noon today, and the aforementioned "projections" suggest both the Crimson Tide and the Seminoles will be ranked in the top five, possibly both in the top three.
The Chick-fil-A Kickoff’s news release also noted that Alabama and Florida State have combined to win five of college football’s past eight national championships – four and one, respectively – and are the two winningest programs since 2010.
READ ON …
Click here for more from ESPN broadcasters on the college football season and Atlanta's "bookend" role in it.
And click here for more on College GameDay returning to Atlanta for the first time since 2012.
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