Nick Saban’s Alabama Football Dynasty Started with a Really Embarrassing Loss
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One of the greatest dynasties in college football—and all sports, for that matter—has ended with the surprising retirement of University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban.
The 72-year-old coach announced his decision Wednesday. He took over the program in 2007 and turned into a yearly championship contender. The Crimson Tide tallied 201 victories during Saban’s tenure, according to ESPN, and won six national championships. His seven total as coach—he split one at LSU in 2003—are the most ever in college football.
“It is not just about how many games we won and lost, but it’s about the legacy and how we went about it. We always tried to do it the right way,” Saban said in a statement. “The goal was always to help players create more value for their future, be the best player they could be, and be more successful in life because they were part of the program.”
Saban has a proven record of backing up his words as he turned the program into an assembly line for successful NFL prospects, but it didn’t start out that way. In fact, the coach’s first season in Tuscaloosa was quite inauspicious, with one “catastrophic” loss in particular cited as a catalyst for Saban’s run of dominance with the Tide.
Alabama was fledgling when Saban took over
Alabama was decades removed from the reign of legendary coach Bear Bryant—himself a six-time champion at the school during the 1960s and ’70s—when it lured Saban away from the NFL’s Miami Dolphins in 2007.
In four previous seasons under Mike Shula, the Tide were a pedestrian 27-24 overall with a win in the 2006 Cotton Bowl Classic as the highlight. The team didn’t even have bragging rights in its own state, as rival Auburn had won their head-to-head matchup in the Iron Bowl five years running.
Headlines off the field weren’t any better, even in the early days of Saban’s tenure. According to Sports Illustrated, three Alabama reserve players were charged by police in a July 2007 incident. Weeks later, the team’s all-SEC cornerback Simeon Castille was arrested in an entertainment district and charged with disorderly conduct.
From the start, Saban knew the key to a turnaround was extracting more commitment from his players on the field and in the classroom. “And when we lose—and we will, one game, two, or more—we have to have a trust that what we are doing will work, trust and belief in who we are,” he told SI.
There was no better example of that than the team’s game against Louisiana-Monroe on November 17.
The ULM loss was so bad, Saban referenced Pearl Harbor
Saban and the Tide started the 2007 season with moderate success, including upset wins over Arkansas and Tennessee. But after player suspensions affected the team’s lineup, “the wheels kind of came off,” then-freshman quarterback Greg McElroy said.
Alabama was 6-4 and on a two-game losing streak going into a home game against lowly Louisiana-Monroe, a 25-point underdog. But instead of gaining momentum against an opponent considered vastly inferior, the Tide played abysmally and committed four turnovers in a 21-14 loss.
As if the score wasn’t enough of an attention-grabber, Saban associated the game with a pair of American tragedies in a now-infamous news conference. “Changes in history usually occur after some kind of catastrophic event,” Saban said. “It may be 9/11, which sort of changed the spirit of America relative to catastrophic events. Pearl Harbor kind of got us ready for World War II, and that was a catastrophic event.
“They talk about alcoholics and people like that who never ever change until they hit rock bottom,” Saban continued. “Well, they change because when they hit rock bottom they have an awareness, they have an acceptance and a commitment to change. That’s what our players need to do right now.”
His eye-catching descriptions caused controversy given the colossal death tolls of the tragedies. More than 2,400 military members and civilians died at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, and 9/11 is the worst act of terrorism in the United States. The 2001 attack killed nearly 3,000 people. Saban later said, “I’m sure there were better ways I could have put it.”
Former lineman Mike Johnson told ESPN the coach’s tone inside the silent Alabama locker room after the game was a lot different. “I hate that you’re feeling this pain right now, but I did everything I could to stop you from it, and you kept going over the cliff,” Saban said, according to Johnson. “So maybe now you’ll start listening.”
Saban left reminders of the game as motivation
Days later, Saban addressed the team and, according to Johnson, threatened to replace players that weren’t fully committed to his vision and to winning. Some players either left the team or transferred after the season, but everyone else got the message. “Leading up to the [ULM] game in practice, it was more nonchalant and less focused. We’re just playing Louisiana-Monroe, what’s the big deal? Why would I kill myself?” former player Drew Davis told ESPN. “The mindset was broken that day.”
The week after the ULM loss, Alabama lost again to rival Auburn in the annual Iron Bowl but had a new level of focus going into its end-of-year bowl game, McElroy told SB Nation. The Tide beat Colorado, 30-24.
That offseason, Saban and his staff left reminders of the ULM game throughout the team complex by putting posters of the scoreboard in players’ lockers, as well as showing replays of the game on television. “We were trying to get the players that had been here in the past to buy into the program that we were trying to build,” he told KNOE in 2022. “And we were trying to recruit players that, you know, could improve our chances and enhance our chances of doing that.”
Saban’s 2008 class cemented the turnaround
With the spotlight on Alabama after its disappointing season, Saban made sure 2008 would be different with one of the best recruiting classes in college football history. Ranked No. 1 by Rivals.com, the class went on to produce five first-round NFL draft picks, including wide receiver Julio Jones, defensive lineman Marcell Dareus, and future Heisman Trophy–winning running back Mark Ingram.
According to Dareus, Saban’s pitch included only three promises: that the team would win, that players would get their degrees, and that they would be better men leaving the program than when they came in. “When they told me that, that was all I needed to hear,” Dareus told USA Today. “When we all got to Alabama, we knew that we’d win a championship in three years.”
Turns out, the Tide did it in two. After going 12-2 in 2008 and reaching the SEC Championship Game, Alabama went undefeated the following year—with McElroy at quarterback—and beat Texas in the national championship. The team hasn’t lost more than three games in any season since, with Saban leading the group to five more titles and cementing Alabama as the premier program in the sport.
Still, Saban never forgot the ULM game and the effect it had on the team. The schools have played twice since, with the Tide winning both times by a combined score of 97-7. “Sometimes you need, I’m going to call it a thunderbolt, which is something not so good to happen to get people’s attention, and I think [that 2007 game] was certainly one,” Saban said in 2022.
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