Alabama football chases dreams Monday night, a repeat national championship and something even more rare, a perfect season.
Even the most history conscious Alabama football fans may not fully appreciate the rarity of a perfect season. While not true for all programs, for the Alabama Crimson Tide, a perfect season is more rare than a national championship.
Alabama football began in 1892 and taking out a few years when there was no team, the Crimson Tide has played for 124 seasons. In only nine of those 124 seasons has the Tide been undefeated and untied.
In Nick Saban’s head coaching career, his teams have achieved a perfect season only once. The one was at Alabama in 2009, which is also the most recent Tide perfect season. All the Bryant-Denny statue coaches achieved a perfect season. Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant has the most with three.
Given the history, it is fair to conclude the odds of a perfect season are small, even for the juggernaut that is Alabama football. The odds, of course, improve with each successive win. Given the rarity of perfect seasons, players on the 2018 Crimson Tide would do well to not tempt fate.
Too many times against Oklahoma, Alabama football players appeared oblivious to tempting fate. Nick Saban knows better, which explains why a headset was blown up by a moment of extreme frustration.
In fairness to the players, it should be said, not every miscue made against Oklahoma resulted from a loss of composure. Even so, the Tide did harm itself at critical times. Brian Robinson’s inexplicable fair catch call on the Sooners short-field kickoff is an example. The combination of a delayed snap and a loss of balance by Damien Harris was another example of guys simply making a mistake. The same is true for one of Jedrick Wills’ procedure penalties. We say one because the second procedure was a phantom penalty, that existed only in the mind of a confused official.
There were other mistakes by Tide players, mistakes caused by lack of judgment or lack of self-control. Raekwon Davis ripping off his helmet was one. The personal foul on Keaton Anderson was another. Even the Dylan Moses horsecollar tackle on Kyler Murray was poor judgment though not as egregious as Davis and Anderson. The classless behavior of some Oklahoma players is also no excuse.
Davis and Anderson foolishly placed their emotions above what was best for their teammates. In our opinion, they were tempting fate. They (and any Tide player) need to not repeat such foolishness against Clemson. Against a good team, such nonsense can cost a team a win, a national championship, a perfect season.
Alabama football fans thinking a discussion of fate is nonsense are entitled to their opinion. They may be correct. To us, it is serious business. So much so, we wish Nick Saban had been still chewing ass after the game instead of tossing oranges.