Is Alabama Football Slipping From Standard It Created for Itself?

Losses don't happen very often for Alabama under Nick Saban, but the Crimson Tide has now lost four of its last 16 games after the defeat by Texas.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — After taking his final question in the postgame press conference following Alabama's loss to Texas Saturday night, Nick Saban hesitated at the podium before heading back to the locker room. 

"It's a privilege to play in games like this," Saban said. "It's a privilege to play at the University of Alabama. It's a privilege to play where you have such great tradition." 

There's some argument about whether or not Alabama has the greatest winning tradition in college football history. The program has the most championships, but other schools have more wins or a higher winning percentage. 

However, there's even smaller room for debate about if Saban is the greatest college football coach of all time. He's won seven total national titles — six at Alabama — and developed numerous Heisman winners, NFL stars and first-round draft picks. 

But do his players still realize what that privilege is? Do they still play with the same intensity and mental discipline that helped the Crimson Tide win all those championships? 

Is Alabama slipping off its pedestal as the kings of college football?

Clemson has fallen off the map after trading championship blows with Alabama in the mid 2010s, but just up the road Kirby Smart and the Georgia Bulldogs are the back-to-back defending national champions. 

Alabama's 34-24 loss to Texas was somewhat of an anomaly in the Saban era for multiple reasons. From 2008 to 2022, Alabama had just two regular season losses by double-digit points (South Carolina in 2010 and Auburn in 2017.)

Beating up on Alabama is simply something that doesn't happen very often to the Crimson Tide under Saban. It happens even less at home, but the smattering of burnt orange throughout Bryant-Denny Stadium had a long, rousing celebration Saturday night. 

Losing in general doesn't happen very much. Five times his teams have gone undefeated in the regular season, and he has just 22 total losses over the last 16 seasons including the loss to the Longhorns. 

But the losses are becoming more frequent (four in the last 16 games dating back to the 2021 national championship loss to Georgia) and the championships farther in between. Yes, that sounds dramatic when putting it into the overall context of college football with Alabama having won a national title in 2020, but it's also the standard Saban has set for himself and the program with the success he's had over the last 15 years. 

ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit picked Alabama as his preseason pick to win the national title for that reason alone– Saban has never gone more than two years at Alabama without winning a title. 

"As long as the guy that’s the head coach is still the head coach, I would have picked Alabama," Herbstreit said leading into Alabama's matchup with Texas Friday. "Because if you go back and look from 2009, their first year that he won the championship, and then just track them — it’s very rare for them to go a couple years and then not win it. By Alabama standards, they’re a little bit of an underdog. You take Bryce Young away. You take Will Anderson away. A lot of people are like, ‘Well, Georgia is the new bar in college football.’ I just think that doesn't sit well with Alabama.”

Also on Friday, College GameDay host Rece Davis told reporters that Alabama is still at the top of the college football heap– maybe not head and shoulders above like Alabama and Clemson were a few years ago– but still at the top. 

But will Alabama be able to stay there after the early-season loss to Texas?

Alabama is now in unchartered territory. The program doesn't lose very often, and it does not normally lose this early in the season either. (The earliest Alabama had lost a game in the season was Week Three against Ole Miss in 2015.) The Crimson Tide is used to having the target on its back, not its back up against the wall from the opening two weeks. 

Alabama starting right tackle JC Latham believes the 2023 team has all the components it needs to win a national championship and is capable of doing so. Latham described what the pressure's like of playing up to that privilege and standard after the Crimson Tide's loss Saturday night. 

"You get everybody’s best," Latham said. "Everybody’s going to come at you with everything they got and then some. So just to be able to get the best out of everybody is what we look for. We’re trying to be the best. We want to be great. All of us want to be the greatest. I wanna be the greatest. So in order to do that you’ve gotta be able to go against teams like this, and you’ve got to be able to get hit in the mouth.”

Saturday was the first time Alabama had lost at home since 2019, and Saban gave a lot of credit to the crowd that was loud and engaged throughout. Bryant-Denny Stadium was a tough environment for Texas to play in, but the Longhorns were not scared of facing the Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa. 

"I’ve been in that locker room," Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said after the game. "A lot of people walk in that stadium—and with the mystique of Alabama—they are beat before the game starts. I had to make sure that our players understood that they were good enough to come in here and win. The moment doubt creeps in that’s when you can make mistakes that can get you beat. I wanted to be clear with our players that it’s not about fearing them—we do respect them—but we were good enough to come in here and win if we played the way we are capable of doing."

All offseason, Alabama players spoke talked about playing with toughness and physicality– getting back to the "Bama Standard." And it appeared the Crimson Tide was on the right track in the Week One victory over Middle Tennessee, but Saban knew this game against a top-15 team would be his team's real test. 

"I told the players early in the week last week that this was going to be a test," Saban said. "That we were going to play a really good team, and we would actually find out where we were as a team. And this was a test for everybody... And we obviously didn't do very well."

Saban took the blame for the loss, saying it starts with him as the head coach, and he let the team down. 

Former Crimson Tide and NFL safety and current SEC Network analyst Roman Harper said this game was going to be an opportunity for Alabama to prove that it was still Alabama. The team obviously did not accomplish that feat.

Current Alabama linebacker Deontae Lawson spoke in the postgame about what he and has teammates will have to do to get back on track with the team's goals. 

"Follow the guys that came before us," Lawson said. "Like he [Saban] said, it’s a privilege, and we’ve definitely got to learn from this loss and get better.”

While the loss isn't ideal for Alabama, it is by no means a death knell in the season, or even for the team's College Football Playoff hopes. At least for now, Texas is a non-conference opponent, so Alabama still has all its goal in front of it for an SEC championship, CFP appearance and national title.

"The season’s not over," Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe said after the game. "We’re going to look in the mirror. We’re going to try and improve. We’re gonna keep fighting. No matter who it is, we’re going to give our best foot forward as a team— offense, defense, special teams— we’re going to keep on coming.”

As with any loss, a lot of the attention will be placed on the quarterback. And Milroe did have some costly mistakes in the loss– namely the two interceptions– but Alabama had lapses all over the field. 

Overall, the team committed 10 penalties for 90 yards. The offense struggled to score, and then when it finally did, the defense struggled to get stops. It was just the 10th time in the last 62 games that Alabama hasn't picked up at least 400 yards of total offense, and it was the first time since the Arkansas game in November 2021 that Alabama has given up more than 450 yards on defense. 

"We have to correct all those things if we're going to be able to play and have the kind of team we are capable of having," Saban said. 

Special teams might have been the highlight of the game for Alabama with Will Reichard going a perfect 3-for-3 on field goals, which included a 51-yarder, and James Burnip averaging over 52 yards a punt and flipping the field several times. 

Things will have to change and get better, or Alabama might not be more than slipping off the top of the college football mountain. 

"Everybody's got basically two choices," Saban said. "You can throw in the towel and quit and be mediocre. Or you can fight and grind and do the hard things that you need to do to be successful.”

See also:

Texas the Better Team in Week 2, But Can it be Alabama in the End?

Texas Executed in the Fourth Quarter, While Alabama Unraveled