Image via WikipediaThey won the national championship.
They brought home the Heisman Trophy.
They also won the SEC Championship Game and dispatched all challengers along the way, all while playing for one of the most high-profile programs in college football, the University of Alabama.
“I don’t think the bullseye is going to get any bigger,” junior linebacker Dont’a Hightower said about this upcoming season. “At some point you just not worry about it. You have to go out and do what you have to do.”
Yet saying that and doing so are two completely different things, especially with everything magnified when seen through a crystal football.
That’s why the biggest question heading into fall camps is can the Crimson Tide win it all again? Already Alabama, which hasn’t lost a regular-season game since 2007, has been slated as the team to beat, and expected to be tabbed No. 1 in virtually every preaseason poll.
But to understand how difficult it is to repeat, consider the following:
No program has ever won back-to-back BCS Championship Games. Only Florida State has played in three straight BCS title games (1999-2001), while Ohio State, Oklahoma, Southern California, Miami all played in two.
The last team to successfully defend its SEC title was Tennessee in 1997-98. Alabama last did it in 1978-79, way before the championship game was conceived in 1992.
Nebraska was the last program to enjoy back-to-back perfect seasons, 1994-95.Last season Alabama was the first SEC team to go unbeaten in conference play for a second straight year since Georgia in 1981-82 (both 6-0). The Bulldogs, who were led by running back Herschel Walker, were also the last team to do it three straight years having gone 6-0 in 1980 - losing only one regular-season game during that span (13-3 at Clemson in 1981).
Alabama lost two regular-season game over the five-year span between 1971-75 (to Auburn in 1972 and Missouri in 1975), but you have to go all the way back to 1938-40 to find the only time in SEC history a program went undefeated in the regular season three straight seasons. Tennessee was a perfect 30-0 under Robert Neyland, but the Vols lost two of their three bowl games.Yeah, it’s that tough. Just ask Nick Saban.
When the coach won his first national title at LSU in 2003, the Tigers came back and went 9-3. They opened with a narrow 22-21 victory against Oregon State and lost Week 3 to Auburn, 10-9, before getting hammered at Georgia 45-16.
LSU ended up playing Iowa in the Capital One Bowl with Saban leaving Baton Rouge for the Miami Dolphins.
This time, though, even his wife Terry could see the wheels already spinning from the stands when Saban got the Gatorade treatment and was subsequently on stage after beating Texas at the Rose Bowl, thinking about what was next. Pretty soon his returning players were too.
“I think that’s the great thing about coach, he never lets you sit and relax,” senior quarterback Greg McElroy said. “As a player, as a guy who’s been around special teams, really successful teams, I don’t want to have that complacency, that sense of relaxation. I want to feel pressed. I want to strive for something. We understand this year is completely different from last year. No one is going to hand us the trophy now because of what we accomplished last year.”
One of Saban’s best offseason aids was a video of champions like Michael Jordan talking about complacency and Warren Sapp telling how teammates wouldn’t even pick up their playbooks the season after winning the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
“They didn’t really see the point,” Hightower explained. “They had won the Super Bowl, why should they? But guys are coming in and doing extra workouts, extra film and everything. I don’t see anybody on the team being complacent like that.”
Saban also banned use of the word “defending,” reinforcing the idea that last season was last season, over and in the past.
“Everybody asked the (New York) Yankees when they were in training camp, is it going to be more difficult to repeat this year winning the World Series than last year?” Saban said. “All 25 guys said, ‘Yes, absolutely it would be.’ But nobody could really answer the question ‘Why?’ I think the ‘why’ comes from it’s more difficult to focus on the process of what it takes to being successful when you’re coming off of success.”
So four main obstacles stand in the Crimson Tide’s way, never mind whatever setbacks might arise along the way:
1) The schedule: Alabama’s last six SEC opponents this season will all be coming off bye weeks, giving them extra time to recover and prepare.
2) Defensive experience: The Tide is essentially replacing nine starters, including three All-Americans, and six of the top seven defensive backs. However, the replacements, as McElroy put it, “Their talent is unbelievable.”
“I honestly think we can complete just as good as we did last year,” Hightower said. “We lost Terrence Cody and guys like that, but we have Josh Chapman. I don’t know if he’s one of those guys everyone knows about, but I guarantee you’re going to know about John Chapman before the end of the season. We have a lot of young guys who are going to come in and help us out on defense.”
3) Every specialist is new: Alabama will have a freshman kicker and punter along with new faces at long-snapper, holder, kick-returner, punt-returner, the signal-caller on punt coverage and maybe even the person who picks up the tee. Special-teams coach Bobby Williams might consider nametags for everyone during meetings through, say, October.
4) The spotlight.
Only the pressures felt tying to win another championship can also be an advantage because the Tide has already been through it all once before. The competition? Not so much.
“It’s never gonna be easy,” junior running back Mark Ingram said. “But we know what it takes to get back to that point and win the championship. We know what we did, how hard we worked.
“But now we’re working even harder. We got to keep pushing ourselves harder because we have a bullseye on our back. Every team is going to give us their best shot when they play us. I’m sure we’re circled on everybody’s schedule this year.”
Try circled, underlined, highlighted and in all caps with stars on the side, off the page and on the wall.
Just the way Alabama wants it.
“The way I look at it, if you’ve been to the mountain top, why would you settle for anything less?” McElroy said. “Our motivation is coming from someplace else this year, it’s coming from our accomplishments to become a good team. All you can really do is put your best foot forward on the way to winning a game.
“The right things have to fall into place for you to win a national championship.”
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