More on the Alabama Football win over Georgia and an old coaching lesson

Alabama football fans are asking what the Crimson Tide's win over Georgia means going forward. Will the Kalen DeBoer Alabama era so quickly yield championship magic akin to the Nick Saban era? Yes, maybe, probably; we don't know yet.

The Crimson Tide played like world-beaters in the first 18 minutes against Georgia. The other 42 minutes were a mixture of dramatic success and almost too frequent failure. Instead of too quickly predicting the Crimson Tide's 2024 season conclusion, thinking about an old coaching lesson may be enlightening.

Nick Saban began coaching as a GA at Kent State in 1973. He became a college and NFL assistant coach before his first head coaching job at Toledo in 1990. After one season at Toledo, he returned to the NFL to coach for Bill Belichick and the Cleveland Browns. In 1995, he returned to college coaching as the head coach of Michigan State.

The Spartans opened the 1995 season by playing the returning National Champion Nebraska Cornhuskers. Nebraska beat Michigan State, 50-10. Years later, Saban remembered his immediate thoughts about the game, "I'm thinking we're never going to win a game. We'll never win a game here at Michigan State. I must have taken a bad job, wrong job, no players, something."

Advice for Nick Saban before he became an Alabama Football legend

Fortunately for Saban, when he met Nebraska coach Tom Osborne on the field after the game, the college legend offered some profound words, "You're not really as bad as you think."

Osborne's comment was a piece of coaching advice that goes way back in coaching history. It is that a team is never as good or as bad as a coach thinks it is. Maybe that insight applies to Alabama's statement win over Georgia. Distilling the coaching wisdom to a more straightforward perspective leads to the closing minutes of the Alabama vs. Georgia game. Kalen DeBoer told Jalen Milroe to just keep playing. "We talked about how there’s some last second plays and you’ve got to keep fighting and keep playing. And the game, with our talent, is going to keep coming back to us. Even when it feels like it’s running away from us."

The game did just that in the closing two and half minutes. No matter how good Alabama was or wasn't; no matter how good it will or won't be in the future; just keep playing is the lesson from the Georgia game. It is not a coincidence that Nick Saban taught that lesson in Tuscaloosa for 17 seasons and Kalen DeBoer teaches it now.