“Never waste a failure.”- Alabama head coach Nick Saban
Whether it was the one BCS national championship at Louisiana State University (2003) or the four national titles at the University of Alabama, Saban had never lost a championship game prior to last season.
When receiver Hunter Renfrow caught a last-second touchdown pass from quarterback Deshaun Watson in the 2017 College Football Playoff National Championship for Clemson, two different emotions came over the Crimson Tide’s program: hurt and vengeance.
Although he entered the Hyatt-Regency/Wynfrey Hotel in Hoover, Ala., to a usual Southeastern Conference Media Days cheer on Wednesday, the mindset of Saban and Alabama’s three student-athletes was evident.
“It takes a tremendous amount of accountability to be able to execute and sustain the execution for 60 minutes in the game,” he said. “And we played against a really, really good team, which I think when you get into the playoffs, that should be what you expect. And we weren’t able to finish the game like we needed to. And I think there’s a lot of lessons to learn.”
Before he was forced to watch Clemson win on the game’s final possession, redshirt senior Bradley Bozeman was one of multiple players hugging quarterback Jalen Hurts in the end zone – following a jaw-dropping, 30-yard rushing score in the fourth quarter. As he returns as the Tide’s starting center, the former three-star prospect said “you can learn so much from losing.”
“When you do something wrong when you win, you don’t realize what you did wrong, you are kind of just held up on a whim,” Bozeman said. “When you lose, you see every little detail.”
Reflecting on a statement mentioned earlier, a Saban coached Alabama team has never lost in a national championship game before last season. Coming in a lineage of former standouts that had success with the Tide, Bozeman knows what’s expected for this program in the upcoming fall.
“All our guys on this team are competitors,” he said. “They want to win. You would not be at Alabama if you did not want to win and continue what Julio [Jones] and Barret [Jones] and all those others guys started. It’s part of our lifestyle.”
Excluding a 43-37 loss to Ole Miss in 2015, it’s rarely ever mentioned about Alabama playing with a chip on its shoulder. For junior defensive back Minkah Fitzpatrick, he stated that it is important to play with an edge to you because you always have something to prove.
“It doesn’t matter who you are,” Fitzpatrick said. “For us, it’s having a target on our back. We always want to win a national championship. Those are two things we can carry all season.”
Hell hath no fury like a hungry Alabama team. This upcoming season will be exciting.
Stephen M. Smith is a managing editor and senior writer for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can “like” him on Facebook or “follow” him on Twitter, via @Smsmith_TDALMag.
