Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban has been the public enemy No. 1 of many college football programs. That happens when you’ve won as much as he has during his now 17 seasons on the Alabama sidelines. With the Georgia Bulldogs and their head coach Kirby Smart who was Saban’s defensive coordinator for the first four of his six national championships in Tuscaloosa riding a 29-game winning streak and back-to-back national titles, it was up to the mentor to do something about it.
That’s exactly what Saban and his Crimson Tide did for the first time since 2021, when Saban and his guys were the last team to defeat the Bulldogs. Now 5-1 head-to-head versus Smart and 31-3 versus former assistants following Saturday’s 27-24 SEC Championship game win, Saban and the Tide will participate in the College Football Playoff. The committee’s decision to include the Crimson Tide over the undefeated ACC champion Florida State seemingly brought the ire of Seminoles fans across the Sunshine State.
Saban’s Number Leaked, ’Noles Fans Call Repeatedly
Following Sunday’s announcement of the playoff teams, the team had a banquet to commemorate the regular season and ninth SEC championship in the Saban era. There Saban revealed what he’d experienced since the not-so-popular announcement earlier in the day.
“I’ve probably had over 250 anonymous callers today, calling me every name in the book, talking about how we shouldn’t be in the playoff. So we still have naysayers out there. We still have players who don’t believe in us.
“Most of the calls are from Florida,” Saban added. “I don’t know how in the hell they got my number, but it is out there.”
Things like this only motivate a team like Alabama who’s lived by the “LANK” (Let All Naysayers Know) motto since a Week 2 home to loss the Texas Longhorns.
Saban And The Tide More Than Belong
There has never been a CFP without an SEC team, with Alabama participating in now eight of the ten. Georgia and LSU are the other two SEC programs to have embarked on the postseason journey. So, to think the committee would’ve had the guts to completely shut out the best football conference as a whole wasn’t gonna happen.
The main reason why it wouldn’t is because of last season’s national championship game which saw the aforementioned Bulldogs dismantle the TCU Horned Frogs 65-7.
If the whole idea is to get the four best teams in the tournament, the committee got it right. On a neutral field Alabama would beat FSU pretty handily, especially with their star quarterback Jordan Travis out for the season.
