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The showdown we’ve wanted: Alabama and FSU to open 2017 season

YH Nick Saban
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Winners of three of the last four college football national championships, the Alabama Crimson Tide and Florida State Seminoles will square off in the New Atlanta Stadium in the 2017 Chick-Fil-A Kickoff game.

The new stadium will be the home of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and MLS’s Atlanta United FC and host several big-time college sames such as the Chick-Fil-A Kickoff and the Peach Bowl, one of the New Year’s six games incorporated into the new College Football Playoff.

The last time the two teams met, FSU emerged victorious 21-14 over Nick Saban’s squad in his first season as head coach in 2007. However, Bama has more wins in the all time series with a record of 2-1-1.

Alabama and Florida State have been the standard in college football for the past few years. Alabama has three national titles under Saban, and FSU coach Jimbo Fisher is 58-11 with one national title and a college football playoff appearance. A January loss in the Rose Bowl snapped the Seminoles’ 29-game winning streak and Alabama’s loss in the Sugar bowl ended a five-year stretch where the of Alabama sent a representative to the national championship game.

Fisher served as Saban’s offensive coordinator during his stint at LSU where the duo won a national championship with the Tigers in 2003. They have remained close since Fisher left to coach under Bobby Bowden at Florida State before the 2007 season.

Fisher was extremely close to becoming UAB’s football coach after the 2006 season, but the University of Alabama System board, which oversees campuses in Birmingham, Huntsville and Tuscaloosa, nixed the deal. Fisher went on to Florida State instead to become offensive coordinator and successor to Bowden.

Before reaching the Seminoles in 2017, the Tide have a tough opening game slate to get through with Wisconsin in 2015 and the USC Trojans in 2016.

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