Everything was going as planned. The Alabama Crimson Tide was less than a quarter away from winning another division championship. They were less than a quarter away from playing for another SEC championship. Ultimately, they were one win from a third straight national championship game. All that stood in their way was an Auburn team that (on that day, at least) made fewer mistakes…and capitalized on more opportunities. In a single second, a state stood still as Alabama’s coaches, players, alumni, students, and fans everywhere watched the dreams of a wholly unprecedented 3-peat crushed before their eyes. In the coming days, Bama fans would see the “Kick Six” more times than they could stomach. We found ourselves scrambling to change the channel, turn off the TV…or even to stare blankly at the wall, wondering how this happened. Only half of those Crimson jerseys who adorned the sideline in Jordan-Hare Stadium that day had known and experienced hoisting the crystal football. For many, stakes this high created uncharted territory. Anti-climactically, a loss to Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl followed, and Alabama found itself in the midst of something that hasn’t happened very often since the onset of the Saban regime in ‘07 – a losing streak.
What made a team, still thought by many prognosticators and honest college football fans everywhere (if there are such a thing), to be by far the best in the nation, lose its last two games in such disappointing fashion? Ironically, one may find some answers in the most dominant game Alabama played during its 2013 campaign – the Nov. 9 dismantling of LSU. The Tide played its most impressive football of the season in the second half, cruising to an easy 38-17 victory. As the final second disappeared from the clock, AJ McCarron leaped into a usually stoic Nick Saban’s arms in a strange, just-won-a-championship kind of way. Saban later downplayed the episode, saying that McCarron was simply very happy about a big-time victory over a talented, division rival. However, to this Alabama fan, something just seemed a little off about it. It seemed as if that leap symbolized the end of something, and ultimately, it did. It marked the last time that McCarron would lead Alabama to a victory over a ranked opponent.
It’s hard to imagine anyone honestly denying that Alabama was the best team in the nation after the LSU game. It seemed as if they had handled the incredible pressure of winning back-to-back national championships. They had gotten past LSU. For the fans, this was precisely how things were supposed to go. Then came the always dangerous LSU hangover game – Mississippi State in Starkville the very next weekend. Tide fans hadn’t forgotten 2012, when Texas A&M caught Alabama in an eerily similar situation and came out victorious, nearly spoiling the second of what should have been three straight National Championships. In a classic case of a lesson gone unlearned, Alabama did everything they could do to lose the Mississippi State game in 2013, allowing four turnovers and only scoring 20 points. At the end of the day, though, they squeaked out an ugly win. Sure, everyone saw the hangover game coming, so not too much thought went into it. The Tide was still rolling. They were still the prohibitive favorites to win it all…yet again. Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that the team was already doomed. The seed of complacency and entitlement was already planted, and it was growing fast. A predictable thrashing of Chattanooga followed Mississippi State, and then came the Iron Bowl. As we all know, Alabama built a 21-7 lead and couldn’t hold on. Countless blunders, not picking up first downs on short yardage, atrocious red zone efficiency, a once in a lifetime play, and some questionable coaching calls did in the Tide. Alabama’s season was over…just like that. A team who had won three of the last four national championships had to face the fact that they were not going to win one in 2013.
Complacency and entitlement – two things that can destroy a team from the inside out. Last season, I believe that Alabama suffered from both. Sometimes, despite the best coach’s best efforts, it is impossible to get a team to continue to buy in to the fact that they must play their best football in order to win and that anyone can be beaten on any given Saturday, when they simply feel invincible. When a team wins at such a high level as Alabama did in 2011, 2012, and for the first eleven games of 2013, it is easy for them to get complacent. It becomes instinctual second-nature for those players to think and to truly believe, perhaps even correctly, that they are the best college football team there is. It is easy for them to forget the process – the hard work, sweat, determination, and the execution of each and every snap that it took to get them to that level of consistent play. After the LSU game, Alabama simply looked entitled, and the supposed on-field leaders did not do enough to right the ship.
When a team loses a game the way that the Iron Bowl was lost, it’s tough to recover. The Sugar Bowl against Oklahoma was to follow, and the Tide lost 45-31. It was another four turnover game, much like the Mississippi State game a few weeks prior. Not surprisingly, Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops took exception to Saban calling the Sugar Bowl a “consolation game,” but what else could someone in Saban’s position call it? The players were used to playing for, or at least playing towards, a championship. Nothing else. Not to take anything away from an Oklahoma team that deserved every ounce of that victory, but Alabama simply did not want to be in that game, and it showed. Now, the Crimson Tide had a losing streak, and perhaps even worse, a long off season in front of them to spend wondering where it all went wrong.
Happily for lovers of Alabama football, the 2014 season has effectively begun. The 3 Alabama players brought to the 2014 SEC Media Days reiterated the aforementioned theory when all three of them used the word “individualism” in regards to describing the mindset of the team throughout the post-LSU portion of last season’s schedule. Senior receiver Christion Jones spoke candidly about how the leadership on the team was divided towards the end of the season, and that the younger players were not to blame. Jones was adamant in stating, “I will not let this happen again this year since I am one of the leaders on this team.”
Saban expressed a similar sort of optimistic determination at this year’s Media Days saying, “Our situation as a team is a lot different this year than it’s been the last couple of years when we were coming off championship seasons. The challenges were so much different in terms of trying to deal with success and complacency. I think it’s a little bit different mindset with our players.”
Alabama will not be the preseason number one, but many have picked them to win the SEC again. Furthermore, most have predicted that they will be one of the last four standing at the end of the season for college football’s inaugural playoff. Undoubtedly, as year after year of top recruiting classes continue to be par for the course for Nick Saban, Alabama’s talent is once again second to no one in the country. This coming year, though, the team will couple that talent with something that the Tide seemed to be lacking in 2013 – hunger. Players that have not before tasted the kind of defeat that was forced down their throats in 2013 are hungry. They’re hungry to prove people wrong. Hungry to reclaim Alabama’s rightful position at the top of the college football world. The hunted has once again become the hunter.
In 2007, when Nick Saban took over a struggling Alabama program, many labeled the Tide a sleeping giant. Looking back now at three national championships in the past seven seasons, that proved to be accurate, and Alabama can no longer claim such a moniker. However, Alabama is still a giant of sorts. Most recently, it is a giant who has been wounded and embarrassed. While this is undoubtedly reason for optimism and confidence for Alabama fans, I have a feeling that the rest of college football is appropriately frightened and apprehensive at the potential damage that could be left in the wake of the 2014 Alabama Crimson Tide.
