For much of the last decade, the sentence landed with a melancholy thud.
During the dark days, when Alabama fans heard the rallying cry echo through the public address system at Bryant-Denny Stadium, it was difficult not to hear the phrase in the context of how far the Crimson Tide had fallen.
In an undertone of past tense.
In the murk of an uncertain future.
But when long-time PA announcer Tony Giles stood before a large crowd of ecstatic fans who braved inclement skies at Bryant-Denny nine days after Alabama clinched its 13th national championship, his signature line took on a whole new meaning.
“This is Alabama football,” he thundered gleefully as the crowd roared.
This.
Yes, this is Alabama football.
Finally.
This.
Three years after inheriting a program in disarray—when some members of the national media wondered why any top-level coach would accept the risk of going to Tuscaloosa and dealing with the program’s cumbersome baggage and enormous expectations—Nick Saban assembled one of the greatest teams in school history. Perhaps the greatest.
Let the arguments begin, but after completing a 14-0 season with a 37-21 victory over Texas in the BCS National Championship Game at the Rose Bowl, the 2009 Crimson Tide deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the dominant ‘Bama teams of 1961, 1966, 1979 and 1992. Legends all.
The defense, led by All-Americans Rolando McClain, Terrence Cody, and Javier Arenas, pursued, smothered and menaced as well as any Alabama team ever. Time after time, the unit slammed the door shut, forced a turnover, came up with the big play necessary to keep the Tide rolling.
It was also the year of quarterback Greg McElroy’s steady—sometimes spectacular—leadership and Leigh Tiffin’s clutch field goals.
Alabama fans will not soon forget the powerful running—and humility—of Mark Ingram, the school’s first Heisman Trophy winner. Yes, it was the way he ran, the way he battled for the tough yards, kept pushing, kept churning, sometimes breaking free for one of those open field zoomers destined to be replayed over and over again on ESPN, earning him the coveted hunk of granite and a lifetime of pop culture ubiquity. But it was also the way he repeatedly went out of his way to acknowledge his teammates, proving that winning the Heisman did not require abandoning ‘Bama’s traditional focus on the team.
Playing a schedule rated the second-toughest in major college football, Alabama—featuring a record six first-team All-Americans—demonstrated not just power but also resilience, mounting fourth-quarter rallies to sink LSU and Auburn, and stubbornly thwarting Tennessee’s upset bid.
Beyond on-the-field comparisons, 2009 Alabama will forever be connected to its forbearers of 1961, who rescued the Crimson Tide from the Whitworth nightmare, won the first of Paul “Bear” Bryant’s six national championships, and set the tone for the most successful quarter-century in college football history.
A certain amount of distance is required to determine how deep the two teams connect, but right now, in the flush of Pasadena, the 2009 season feels much like 1961. A new era of Alabama power appears to be at hand.
What Saban has accomplished in three years is nothing short of remarkable. Facing the twin dragons of Bryant’s memory and his own $32-million contract, which made him a target of both envy and scorn, Saban methodically rebuilt the program brick by brick, rendering the mediocre Shula Era little more than a bad dream. No matter what, he has earned his inevitable stature outside the stadium, alongside Wade, Thomas, Bryant and Stallings. No matter what, he has earned his way into the same sentence with those giants. It is impossible to say what might have happened if Alabama had hired someone else three years ago, but an entire generation of grateful Alabama fans, conditioned by the pain of coaching departures and NCAA probations, now seems likely to view Saban not just as a guy who led the Crimson Tide to a national championship…but as the man who saved ‘Bama from fading into the history books. If he stays in Tuscaloosa for the long haul and if the program can avoid the traps of the last two decades, the Crimson Tide could be in the early stages of a new dynasty.
But in Tuscaloosa, the past is always prologue.
As I stood on the field at the Rose Bowl as the seconds ticked away, looking up into the sea crimson delirium, soaking up the pent-up emotion intensified by all those years of frustration, my thoughts wandered into the shadows, to the long-gone men who rode a train into the history books.
Because Alabama’s national-championship-clinching win was more than a victory for Saban and the 2009 Crimson Tide.
It was a confirmation of the regenerative power of the Alabama football tradition.
It was living proof that Wallace Wade’s creation—launched onto the national stage at the 1926 Rose Bowl, by those 22 country boys who rode the rails to Pasadena—ultimately was strong enough to survive all those subsequent years of self-destructive behavior, neglect, poor choices, and shadow-boxing, emerging from the muck more powerful than ever.
It was stronger than Mike Shula’s unfortunate tenure.
And Mike Price’s libido.
And Dennis Franchione’s Robert Irsay impression.
In the 27 years since the sudden death of Paul “Bear” Bryant, the memory of the greatest coach in college football history has simultaneously inspired and haunted the Alabama program.
Even as every significant decision in Tuscaloosa was considered with a determination to recapture the glory of the Bryant Era, to make Alabama Alabama again, some actually saw him as a burden, as an impossible standard. But those who viewed Bryant as a lead weight dangling from the neck of his various successors never understood his critical role in the competitive tension underpinning the Alabama program. It was his ambition that empowered the very forces which—eventually—propelled the Crimson Tide on the circuitous route back to the promised land.
In the end, it was not just Nick Saban who rescued the Crimson Tide from reeling toward the free-falling existence of a former power.
It was the tradition itself.
It was the cumulative energy of all those young men across all those decades of ups and downs, taking pride in wearing the crimson jersey, investing the program with their sweat, their dreams, who created and sustained a living and breathing force that was strong enough to survive all the body blows of the last two decades.
Yes, it was Nick Saban and Terrence Cody and Mark Ingram.
But it was also Johnny Mack Brown.
Dixie Howell.
Harry Gilmer.
Steve Sloan.
Wilbur Jackson.
Jay Barker.
Shaun Alexander.
And you.
Yes, you.
The real strength of the Crimson Tide for all these years has been that so many people cared about the program, investing it with their collective passion, a power that ripples across the landscape in so many important ways.
When Saban arrived in January of 2007, the right man at the right time, the Alabama football program was deeply troubled.
But it had a heartbeat—thanks to you.
You believed—even when a succession of coaching and administrative blunders made this a sometimes difficult act of faith.
You kept demanding the highest standard of achievement—even when much of the college football world mocked your stubborn insistence that Alabama reach beyond mediocrity and reclaim its place among the sport’s elite powers.
Your love was unconditional, but you never stopped pushing the Crimson Tide to live up its storied heritage, making you a crucial conduit between the past and the future.
Opposing fans delighted in reminding you that the Bear was dead. They painted this message in shoe polish onto RVs and yelled it out, tauntingly, from passing cars.
The message was clear: Alabama will never be great again.
But by keeping his memory alive, by insisting that the new generation chase his record-setting numbers, you helped infuse the Alabama program with the strength to regenerate itself, eventually unleashing the forces that made Nick Saban possible.
Twenty-two men on a train.
Paul Bryant.
Nick Saban.
And you.
