National Champions

Alabama would likely have won even if Colt McCoy was playing. The score would have been different at halftime and the Tide would not have gone into a shell in the third quarter. The long and short of it is we won. We won the game with defense and a tough running game. When push came to shove the defense made a play and ended the game.

  Is this the best Alabama team ever? I have no idea. This was a team - I think that was the real difference between Alabama and Texas. Colt McCoy was the key to the Texas offense. He’s the reason people are talking about an asterisk. Texas came back and made a game of it? What’s up with that? Somebody had to lose the game - the Tide won. I thought they should have taken a knee on the last touchdown drive, but that wasn’t my call.

I am still just in shock about the whole thing. The football program was in such disarray for so many years. I remember LSU putting 600 yards on our defense in Tuscaloosa when Coach Fran was in town. Mike DuBose won the SEC and lost the Orange Bowl and then melted down in 2000. Mike Price well that was just plain embarrassing. Mike Shula - I really liked Mike Shula. He was a nice guy who cared about Alabama but nothing ever happened. He’d win some and he’d lose some but he could never win in November. It was baffling and I the eternal optimist kept coming up with reasons why we would be better next year.

Then they brought in Nick Saban. Saban goes 7-6 in his first year. That team couldn’t finish games and didn’t show up for Louisiana Monroe, much like Shula’s team didn’t show up for Duke. The Louisiana Monroe game was the most embarrassing thing ever. Then the next year we win the first 12. There were some close calls. We let Georgia almost come back from a 30 point lead. Then we lose to Florida and ugh Utah.

  Close but no cigar. It was strangely reminiscent of Shula’s 10-2 teams. I know what you’re thinking, come on Fox this was so different. Really? Losing to Utah in a very ugly game. Losing to Florida in the SEC championship. I could just see all those Alabama-Florida games where Steve Spurrier beat Gene Stallings again and again. It was just too eerie.

I didn’t factor in the St. Nick equation. That is the difference. Nick’s not Bear, he’s Nick. He has brought us home from the wilderness; we have seen the light and he brought us to the promised land. So you will just have to forgive me as I pinch myself because this has been a long time coming. I was in college during the glory days of the 1970s. Remember: “They have a name for winners in the world and I want a name when I lose. They call Alabama the Crimson Tide . . .” Yes Virginia there is a Steely Dan and there was a Bear and there was a steamroller called the Crimson Tide. It was just swell.

Well, Bob it looks like St. Nick is the new coach, the new master of Xs and Os and a recruiting machine. Will we win 14 every year? No. When one team gets on top others load to find a way to beat them. Ask Florida. To quote Mark Ingram “We back.”

Roll Tide

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