Want To Beat Alabama At Home? Then You Better Have A Quarterback

Since 2008 Alabama is 84-5 at home under Nick Saban.

Few things in sports—or in life for that matter—are more difficult than beating the University of Alabama in football in Bryant-Denny Stadium.

Consider this: Since the 2008 season, Nick Saban’s second as head coach, the Crimson Tide is 84-5 at home. That’s right--84 wins and only five losses in 13 seasons.

Here is a summary of the losses:

2010: Auburn, led by Cam Newton, the eventual Heisman Trophy winner, rallies the Tigers from a 24-point deficit to win 28-27. Auburn would go on to win the BCS national championship.

2011: In what was billed as “The Game of the Century” LSU kicked a field goal in overtime to win 9-6. The two teams would meet again for the BCS championship in New Orleans. Alabama would win 21-0.

2012: Texas A&M’s Johnny Manziel had a vintage performance, completing 24 of 31 passes for 257 yards while running for 92 more yards. The Aggies would win 29-23. Alabama would drop from No. 1 to No. 4 in the BCS standings but play its way back into the BCS championship game, where it demolished Notre Dame 42-14. Manziel won the Heisman Trophy.

2015: Ole Miss quarterback Chad Kelly completed 18 of 33 passes for 341 yard and three touchdowns as the Rebels beat Alabama 43-37. Kelly had touchdown passes of 66 (which bounced off a helmet), 73 and 24 yards. Alabama had five turnovers and lost by only six points.

2019: LSU quarterback Joe Burrow locked up the Heisman Trophy by completing 31 of 39 passes for 393 yards and three touchdowns in a 46-41 win.

So what did we learn here? We learned that if you have designs on beating Alabama in Bryant-Denny you better show up at the dance with a good--make that a very good--quarterback.

Three of the five teams that have beaten Alabama over the past 13 years in Tuscaloosa had a Heisman Trophy winner at quarterback. A fourth (Ole Miss) had a quarterback (Chad Kelly) in the Heisman Trophy discussion.

The only exception to this rule came in the 2011 Alabama-LSU game, which featured a ton of future pros on both sides. LSU was so good at every other position it didn't need a great quarterback to win.

So now No. 12 Ole Miss (3-0) will get its turn on Saturday as the Rebels, coached by former Saban OC Lane Kiffin, comes to Tuscaloosa to take on No. 1 Alabama.

And guess what? Ole Miss, a 20-point underdog, has a good quarterback. Maybe a Heisma Trophy quarterback.

In three games this season junior quarterback Matt Corral has completed 68.8 percent of his passes for an average of 335 yards per game. He is also averaging 10.5 yards per attempt, which leads the nation.

The California native played in four games as a true freshman in 2018, had four starts in 2019, and then had his breakout season in 2020, throwing for 3,337 yards and 20 touchdowns. He completed 70 percent of his passes.

Now he gets a start in front of the largest crowd of his career. And he will not be rattled, Kiffin said.

“It helps to have a quarterback like Matt,” Kiffin told the media on Monday in Oxford. “Matt has all the intangibles. He’s here at 5:30 in the morning. He tries to do everything the right way.”

When these two teams met a year ago in Oxford, Miss., Corral completed 21 of 28 passes for 365 yards and two touchdowns in a 63-48 win by Alabama. Ole Miss rolled up 647 yards of total offense. Alabama had 723. The boys in Vegas have set the over/under for Saturday's game at 80 points.

Corral says this Ole Miss team is taking a completely different approach to the Alabama game this season.

“Last year we were more worried about playing Alabama,” Corral said to reporters on Monday. “But this year we’re not worried about who we are playing. We’re worried about how WE play. We are just worried about today.

Corral said he would looking forward to what promises to be an intense atmosphere in his first time at Bryant-Denny.

“I absolutely love it when the crowd goes crazy,” said Carrol. “That's college football.”

One additional factor to keep in mind from former Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy. If you’re going to beat Alabama, you need more than just a good quarterback. You need a quarterback who can surprise the Alabama defense.

“Nobody is going to have a better plan than Alabama so you have to have a quarterback who can do the unexpected,” said McElory, now an analyst for ESPN. “He needs to be in a scheme that promotes doing things off schedule.

“That’s why Johnny Manziel was so hard for Alabama to defend,” said McElroy. “He could do things that you had not planned for.”

There is this final factor. Saturday’s game will mark the 25th time that Saban, who has won seven national championships (six at Alabama, one at LSU), will meet one of his former assistants. He is 24-0 in those games.

Kiffin was Saban’s OC from 2014 until the CFB Playoffs of 2016. Kiffin coached in the national semifinals that year but was relieved of his duties before the national championship game with Clemson.

Both men had nothing but praise for each other when they met with the media on Monday.

When asked how Alabama had maintained this torrid pace of winning—six national championships since 2009—Kiffin said:

“Nick Saban. Alabama has been around a long time and hasn’t won big like this,” he said. “He’s being able to maintain it with tons of different players and tons of different coaches.

“He had six first rounders (draft choices). We had two draft picks.”

Saban hired Kiffin in 2014 to completely revamp Alabama’s offense to more of  a a spread that took advantage of RPO concepts. The Crimson Tide offense has never been the same.

“He did a marvelous job of that when he was here,” said Saban. “He’s continued to build on it, but I’d say I learned that from him.”