Alabama is competitive. Every year. This is the legacy of Alabama football coach Nick Saban. His process returned the Tide to relevancy and has the Crimson Tide challenging for SEC division crowns, SEC championships and national titles. Every year, Alabama starts the season somewhere in the AP Top 10. Whether Alabama wins every game or not, it is satisfying to be in contention and to field competitive football teams who have a chance to beat anyone in college football.
This season, Alabama is once again competing for the SEC title and national championship. Whether the Crimson Tide can win it remains to be seen with a tough challenge against Georgia looming in Atlanta for the Tide—that is provided Alabama beats Auburn in the traditional Iron Bowl rivalry game.
However, not only is Alabama in position for a 15th national title and a 23rd SEC title, but Alabama’s biggest rivals are bad.
Historically bad.
Let’s be honest. Auburn is putrid. The record is garbage and there is the stench of death surrounding the entire program. The Auburn family is divided unlike any time in recent memory. If Auburn fires football coach Gene Chizik, it is an admission that the entire 2010 season was tainted. Either, Gene Chizik is a good football coach that knows how to evaluate talent (Cam) and develop talent (Cam and Nick Fairley), or Gene Chizik is the incompetent clown that Auburn fans want fired.
Chizik has performed at a historically bad level. Auburn is 3-8 overall and 0-7 in SEC play headed into the Iron Bowl.
Everyone outside the Auburn family recognized that Gene Chizik was a bad coach when hired following a 5-19 record at Iowa State; however, who could predict this level of ineptitude? It is beyond most fans’ wildest dreams.
Now Alabama fans can watch the Auburn family commit fratricide as factions struggle for control of the program. If Auburn is not careful, this type of fighting can scar a program for years. The dearth of leadership on the Plains surely makes many wish for the return of Bobby Lowder.
As for the Tennessee Volunteers, there is a sweet satisfaction watching the Volunteers struggle. Tennessee has not won an SEC title since 1998. Since Phil Fulmer became a private investigator rather than a football coach, Tennessee has slipped. Upon Saban’s arrival at the Capstone, Fulmer slipped into irrelevancy. The coaches who followed have been worse. Tennessee should have kept Fulmer. Of course, there was something fitting in the firing of Fulmer after the way the douche screwed Johnny Majors out of a job.
When the Vols fired Fulmer, they followed that up with the spectacularly bad Lane Kiffin. Kiffin made so many gaffes that upon his departure, Tennessee was a dumpster fire. Kiffin spent one season in Knoxville, but tarnished the program with NCAA violation after NCAA violation. Kiffin was a walking secondary and in fact, Tennessee probably escaped lightly with Hostessgate.
Derek Dooley followed Kiffin. All Dooley did was post losing records in his three seasons in Knoxville. Some of this was a talent issue, but most of it was a leadership issue. Dooley was out of his depth in Knoxville. That is not to say Dooley is a bad head coach, but he was clearly not ready for the demands and challenges of leading a major SEC brand.
Tennessee is not even in the close to a serious challenger to Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and even Vanderbilt.
Tennessee will be competitive again. However, there is a satisfaction for many Alabama fans as they watch the Volunteers’ self-inflicted wounds bleed season after season.
This is a good season to be an Alabama fan. Would another championship combined with the abject failure of Auburn and Tennesse make this season the best ever for an Alabama fan? Share your thoughts below.
11 thoughts on “Is this the best season ever to be an Alabama fan?”
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IF we can win out and smoke Notre Dame, then it will be close to perfection, missing that goal only by an unlikely failure to push the ball in against A&M for another miracle comeback. The way we tore LSU’s heart out was a thing of beauty. 3 out of 4 NCS would be historic; we have been robbed of 2 prior chances for this feat (’66, ’77), so it will be hard to argue that it is the best ever.
During the down years that Bama was having (when Shula was in his first year of coaching), I remember a co-worker interrupting a conversation that I was having with a client about the state of Bama’s football program. We were being optimistic, realizing it may be awhile before Bama would be really good again, but it would come eventually. The Auburn fan that interrupted our conversation bluntly told us Bamas heyday was over, and that they would never win another national championship. Programs like Auburn and Tennessee had passed Bama by, and that Bama’s success in the past could never be duplicated by them again. I mean this guy was so obnoxious and sure of his words. He basically was calling us foolish, because even though Bama was down, we were still backing up Bama and optimistic for the future. I was as much of a Bama fan then as I am now.
Sure, I have rubbed it in and dished out a lot of prideful gloating over what Bama has accomplished under Saban. But even when there was probation, inept coaching and recruiting, I never believed that it would never get better.
When we were down, Auburn and Tennessee fans were the worst of the worst. The hate, and jealousy of Bama was still there, even when Bama wasn’t winning and their teams were. I took it all in stride, and nothing ever shook my loyalties to Bama. If anything, the way those fans were made my loyalty even stronger.
So, I have no pity for these guys right now. I hope Bama runs the score up on Auburn this Saturday. One day I am sure Auburn and Tennessee will be better. But that day is not today, and I will kick them while they are down. These are the days to be proud to be a Bama fan, but it is also days of redemption, and what goes around comes around. We have a right to be proud of what Bama has done, considering on where they were before they got to this point.
Now, the question is, can Tennessee accomplish what Bama has done? Can Auburn do it? I think we all really know the answer to that. They may get better, but it really isn’t hard to do that when you are so bad, for so long. But can either school make a 4-5 year run like Bama has?
I agree, I had the same type of experience with these barners. So I do not feel sorry for them. When we all are there on Saturday and the hapless little tiggers run out of the tunel please dont boo. I say we point and laugh, it’s much more appropriate. Just kidding, I do feel a little bad for those young men. They have been let down by their sorry excuse of a coaching staff and THOSE are the ones that are going to get what they deserve.
Yeah, it’s good to be the king. – Mel Brooks
I’ve always said as much as I know Alabama fans hate Tennessee I think UT deserved so much better than what Lane Kiffin did to them. It’s disgusting.
They’re rebuilding, dumping hundreds of millions into rennovations and new facilities. And they have one of the biggest budgets in the nation. Tennessee will be back to title contenders within the next decade.
Auburn though? Hrm. Well, they will get better, but “back?”
I lived in Tuscaloosa during the worst times, including at one point having three football coaches in less than a year. Plenty of fans are committed to their teams even when they are losing.
But most of them have never won a title. Even fewer have been alive to see any of those titles (or thier lone title). Many people like to complain about the titles Alabama “claims,” but the truth is I’ve seen five titles in my lifetime. Five. 2012 would be the sixth.
Alabama didn’t just come back. They came back the right way and playing the kind of fundamental football that Alabama has always been defined by. And now some of the guys on the 2009 and 2011 title-winning teams are seniors, like Barrett Jones, a clinical example of what Alabama’s football program is capable of doing with young men committed to being the best they can be.
But Auburn?
My brother always reminds me to enjoy football success because it simply never lasts. But this weekend is the Iron Bowl. Success in the Iron Bowl is easy to enjoy, but I’m afraid some people will be reluctant to celebrate.
Don’t be. Revel in it. Enjoy every single win Alabama gets, always. It’s absolutely the best time ever to be an Alabama fan. But don’t look back on it later wishing you had enjoyed it more. Live it. It’s our time. Roll Tide.
Well said. Roll Tide!
yes – but roller coarster ride…thrill of victory/lsu agony of defeat/am thrill of victory/upsets and we still ain’t won jack
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Ask me again after Bama stomps some sorry barn ass and sends chiz out the door with the idiots in Auburn begging someone to come coach their team. Then ask me after Bama makes Aaron Murray look like the choker he is every time he plays a big-time D. And then ask me again after Bama rips into Notre dump for another national title. Then I’ll tell you hell yeah.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that yet. Texas had always been a thorn in our sides and to wax their ass and put their Heisman qb our was a hell of thrill, not to mention Fliridumb ans Teabutt. Last year the way everything worked out with the Corndogs and embarrassing their asses in a game that may never be replayed to give them any chance of redemption was also awesome. This year is scary. The defense has flashes where you begin to thing ut’s as dependable as last year, then they pkay like shit against LSU and A&M. Georgias D can slow us down and Murrey us scarry. Notre Dames dual threat QB is getting it tofether and their defense is probably equal to Bama’s, LSU’s and Florida’s. So I’m not near as comfortable as I was this time in ’09 or last year. The only thing that might put this year above the others is the opportunity to take a Natty away from the Gnomers. Bur that alone might not do it. We need to really, really embarrass them and send their Yankee asses home with their tails between their legs. RTR!