They’ve done it. The Texas Longhorns have finally beaten Alabama.

Well, finally in the sense of the Saban era. Texas actually has a winning record against Bama all time, however, they hadn’t beaten Bama since 1982, and until last night, all their wins against Bama happened between 1902 and 1982.

Bama famously beat Texas in the 2009 National Championship game by a score of 37-21, although the game was closer than the score. Many in Texas believe their Longhorns would’ve won that game had their star quarterback Colt McCoy not been knocked out of the game early on with a shoulder injury. I tend to agree with them because of how close that game was even without Colt McCoy—they put in the backup QB, true freshman Garrett Gilbert, and after a rough start he had Texas down just 24-21 with 6:15 to play.

Bama would add a touchdown off a fumble recovery inside the Texas 5 yard line with about 2 minutes to play, and then they got an even later garbage time touchdown off a pick deep in Texas territory to make it look like a blowout. But Texas had the ball, down 3, with just over 3 minutes to play in that game.

And this is how the Saban Alabama dynasty began, really. This was their first National Championship under Saban, but I really do think Texas was going to win that game if Colt McCoy didn’t get hurt.

Not only was it the start of the Alabama dynasty, it marked the end of a great run by Texas in the 2000s under Mack Brown. After winning at least 10 games every year between 2001-2009, the Texas Longhorns football program fell off a cliff the following year. They went 5-7 in 2010, and wouldn’t win 10 games in a season again until 2018. 2018 remains the only time since 2009 that Texas has won double-digit games.

That game in 2009 really was a major turning point for both programs. Alabama went on a run of dominance like the sport has never seen, and the Texas Longhorns plunged into mediocrity for over a decade.

So Texas waited over 12 years for their revenge. Their program was in the wilderness for a long time, and then in September of 2022, Bama came down to Austin for their first meeting since that fateful National Championship in January of 2010. And Texas was looking good—they were not expected to be competitive with Alabama in that game, but they absolutely were.

Until Quinn Ewers got knocked out of the game.

With a shoulder injury.

Just like Colt McCoy.

You really can’t make this stuff up.

Texas waited over 12 years for their revenge on Alabama, and when the moment came, the game played out almost exactly like the 2009 National Championship game played out.

But Texas would get another chance at revenge, because they had scheduled a home and away with Bama. While it certainly stung like hell to lose the way they lost last season, they got another crack at Bama this season, and they were able to take advantage of it and get the win.

I should’ve just gone with my initial read on this game. Texas was better than Alabama last year but Ewers got hurt. Now without Bryce I just didn’t see how Alabama is better than they were last year, and they were not even a great team last year as it is.

How the heck did I get fooled by Alabama beating freaking Middle Tennessee State in week 1? I guess it was just because Milroe looked better than I expected him to look. That’s really all it was. My expectations were low, he exceeded them, so I thought, “Wow, maybe Milroe has really progressed this offseason.” It was at odds with my expectations, so kind of panicked and reevaluated my Bama thesis.

I wrote last season that Saban was starting to decline because he’s getting older, about to be 72, and that’s around the same age that JoePa and Bobby Bowden started to fall off. You saw a lot of very uncharacteristic things from Alabama last season—they led the nation in penalties, they led the SEC in dropped passes—and they just felt way more beatable than they ever have under Saban.

And I didn’t think that would change this season, because how could they get better after losing Bryce Young? Bryce Young straight up carried them for the past two years, and not only were they losing him they were also losing Jahmyr Gibbs—their best offensive weapon—and Will Anderson, their best defensive player and arguably the best defensive player in the nation. All throughout the offseason I was not buying the Bama hype.

In fact I thought Alabama would be a 3-4 loss team.

But because Texas didn’t look super impressive last week against Rice, I somehow talked myself out of picking them. Since last year’s Bama vs. Texas game, I was planning on picking Texas to win this year’s game. And I stuck to that for a whole year up until last week when I got cold feet.

Part of me was just of the mindset that you simply can never count out Nick Saban. Alabama has been dominant for so long, you’re more likely to look like a fool in predicting their demise than you are to be right. Like with Tom Brady and how Max Kellerman famously predicted in 2016 that Brady was about to “fall off the cliff.” Brady won three Super Bowls and an MVP after Kellerman made that prediction, playing for a full 7 more seasons. Not only that but he also never really fell off a cliff, he more or less retired on his own terms, not because he simply couldn’t play anymore.

So that’s probably why I was afraid to pick against Bama this time. I just have this thought that they can snap and turn into Peak Bama at any time.

But I don’t think so. They had the most talented roster in the nation last year, as they do this year, and they still finished with 2 losses last year (and it should’ve been at least 4).

The signs are there that Bama’s fall-off has not only begun but is starting to get really noticeable.

You remember how they made a big deal about how Saban had never lost to one of his former assistants as of 2021? That year, he lost to two of them: Jimbo Fisher and A&M beat Bama that year, and then they lost to Kirby Smart’s Georgia Bulldogs in the National Championship.

Well, now it’s happened a third time: Sark just beat Saban, and he did it in Tuscaloosa as well.

Saban was, I believe, 24-0 against his former assistants until that loss to A&M in 2021. He’s 4-3 since.

Bama had the longest home winning streak in the nation until tonight. 20 games in a row, now broken. The last time they lost a game at home was in 2019 to Joe Burrow, Justin Jefferson and JaMarr Chase. Prior to that, the last time they lost a game at home was in 2015 to Ole Miss (there was a couple year stretch back then where Ole Miss kinda sorta had Bama’s number).

Bama does not lose at home. Texas should have had no chance in this game.

I’m hesitant to say Texas is even back, honestly. Just because I don’t think Bama is Bama anymore. Look, this is the biggest win for the Texas Longhorns since probably the 2009 season. This is a defining moment in Steve Sarkisian’s career, too. This is massive for the program, because the perception is still that Bama is the cream of the crop of college football.

I am really happy for Sark, though. That guy has been through a lot. And it’s also good to have Texas be, if not fully “back” to where they were when they had Vince Young, at least a legitimate top-10 program in the country.

Quinn Ewers had his coming out party, he should absolutely be a Heisman candidate, he’s showing that the hype for him coming out of college was justified–just a massive moment for both him and Sark, and the whole Texas Longhorns football program.

At the very least, you can’t make fun of Texas anymore. Those days are over. You have to take them seriously now. You can’t just brush them off anymore.

No more scoffing and laughing at how Texas is gonna go 7-5 in the SEC every year. They can clearly compete on an SEC level. This game was not an upset. Texas was the better team. They’re more than ready to make the move to the SEC.

Here’s what really told me all I needed to know about this game, besides the final score: Texas had 4 red zone trips while Bama just had one. And they only got a field goal out of it. It felt like Bama’s touchdowns were almost fluky–they mainly came off of deep passes and poor tackling by the Texas defense. (If you’re going to nitpick Texas’s performance, you could point to the fact that they had 16 missed tackles in this game. That has got to get cleaned up if they’re really going to make a real run here.)

Bama just couldn’t reliably move the ball. They punted 5 times on 12 possessions, and then an additional two drives were turnovers. That is not good. They were unable to get to the red zone consistently and had to rely on big plays to score–that is not Bama football. That’s how you can tell they were the lesser team.

Also, I was told that Bama had the best secondary in the nation. Didn’t look like it last night. Quinn Ewers threw for 349 yards, 3 TDs, no picks, 9.2 yards per attempt, 24/38 pass attempts completed. QBR: 88.9. He was dealing. Slicing and dicing.

I said the other day that I didn’t really see Ewers slicing and dicing against Rice in week 1 which is why I wasn’t confident in him going against Bama. But he was definitely slicing and dicing Bama’s secondary.

Just like last year, Bama’s secondary got exposed. And the secondary is supposed to be Saban’s unit, too. He played DB back in the day—the secondary is supposed to specifically be his position group.

Do people just think Kool Aid McKinstry is the best cornerback in the nation because his name is Kool Aid? I think that might be the case. I’ve heard several people mention him as the best corner in college football, he made the preseason All America team, but I think it might just be because he has a unique and recognizable name, he plays at Bama, and he’s been there for a long time.

Bama didn’t sack Ewers once in this game. Not once. Meanwhile, Texas sacked Milroe 5 times. They did hold Texas to 2.8 yards per carry, which is good, but they also got roasted through the air. Bama’s pass defense has been suspect for a while now and it doesn’t look like that’s changed. People were saying Bama has the best defense in the nation!

I mentioned that Texas missed 16 tackles, but Bama’s defense missed 10. That is not normal for a Saban defense.

Bama doesn’t feel like Bama anymore. They just don’t. I’ve been saying this since last year. It was the Texas game last year that really set off the alarm bells. Though Bama won, we all knew Texas should’ve won, and this game confirmed it. But the thing about last year’s game was that it didn’t feel like Texas was as competitive as they were because they were an elite team on Bama’s level. It felt like Texas was a decent team, but not a great team. In other words, that game felt like Bama had fallen down to Texas’s level rather than that Texas had elevated to Bama’s level.

In last year’s game, Bama incurred something like 15 penalties against Texas.  That’s unheard of for Alabama under Nick Saban. The one thing Saban has done better than everyone else is discipline: he takes college aged kids—who are notoriously unreliable, hard-headed, mercurial and erratic— and makes them into consistent performers who do what their coaches tell them to do. Discipline—Saban always had the most disciplined team in the country. Now he doesn’t.

They had 10 penalties for 90 yards last night against Texas. Penalties are still a major issue for Alabama. They led the league in penalties last season, and I guess people just assumed they would clean that up—that it was an aberration?

Nope. Penalties are STILL an issue for Bama. They’re STILL undisciplined. They turned the ball over twice—two picks by Jalen Milroe including one later in the game that was extremely costly and may have been the turning point of the game. Texas had just scored to retake the lead, 20-16. They were leading all game but Bama chipped away at the lead, from 13-3 to 13-6, then 13-9, then finally Bama took at 16-13 lead, and Texas responded with a TD.

Milroe, however, on the very first play of the ensuing drive, throws a pick that got returned to the Bama 5 yard line, and one play later, it was 27-16 Texas. That was really the turning point in the game.

I also saw poorly handled snaps and just bad snaps in general on multiple occasions. There was a lot of sloppy, undisciplined play by Alabama.

Bama is no longer the most polished, disciplined team in the nation. That used to be a major part of what made them seem so unbeatable: you just had this sense that they were the one team that would always execute everything exactly the way they were supposed to. They didn’t make mistakes. Saban always got the maximum potential out of his players, and since he was (and still is) the best recruiter in the nation, it made them just about unbeatable. The most talented football players in the country, all realizing their full potential and making virtually zero mistakes. This was why they lost so few games until recently. 

Now it doesn’t feel like they’re developing these players as well as they used to. It doesn’t seem like they maximize their players’ potential.

They’ve got the most talented team in the country. In fact it’s one of the most talented teams ever, with a 90% blue chip ratio. That’s just ridiculous. That means that just about every Bama player you saw on your screen last night was either a 4 or 5 star recruit—90% of their 85 man roster.

But where is the offensive skill position talent here? 

Let’s go over the offensive skill position players from Bama’s 2020, 2021 and 2022 recruiting classes. We’ll exclude the 2023 class because those guys are just true freshmen right now and you can’t really render any verdict on them. So we’ll look at sophomores, juniors and seniors.

2022 class

• Ty Simpson, 5 star QB (was supposed to be the heir-apparent, lost QB competition to Jalen Milroe and Tyler Buchner and is now the third stringer)
• Aaron Anderson, 4 star WR (transferred to LSU after last season)
• Jamarion Miller, 4 star RB (still at Bama, had 33 carries his first season and has 6 carries so far this season)
• Kobe Prentice, 4 star WR
• Amari Niblack, 4 star TE
• Shazz Preston, 4 star WR (Still at Bama, as far as I can tell hasn’t recorded any stats at all)
• Tyler Harrell, 4 star transfer WR from Louisville, was 3 star out of HS
• Jermaine Burton, 4 star transfer WR from Georgia, was 4 star out of HS
• Jahmyr Gibbs

2021 class

• JaCorey Brooks, 5 star WR (was suspended for the first half of the MTSU game but as far as I can tell has not recorded any stats this season. Only has 54 catches for 866 yards and he’s in his third year.) 
• Agiye Hall, 4 star WR (transferred to Texas but was dismissed from the program, and as far as I know he’s not playing college football anymore)
• Camar Wheaton, 4 star RB (Transferred to SMU after 2021 season)
• Jojo Earle, 4 star WR (Transferred to TCU after last season)
• Jalen Milroe, 4 star QB
• Christian Leary, 4 star WR (Transferred to Georgia Tech after last season)
• Robbie Ouzts, 3 star TE (Still at Bama, 5 career receptions in 3 years)
• Jameson Williams, 3 star transfer WR from Ohio State (was 4 star out of HS)

2020 class: this was the class where they got Bryce and Will Anderson so a lot of these guys are already moved on but I wanted to go over the skill position talent they pulled in anyway. 

• Jase McClellan, 4 star RB
• Thaiu Jones-Bell, 4 star WR (out of South Florida too! Still at Alabama, 4 career receptions in 4 years)
• Roydell Williams, 4 star RB 
• Traeshon Holden, 4 star WR (transferred to Oregon for his graduate year this season)
• Javon Baker, 4 star WR (Transferred to UCF after 2021 season)
• Kyle Edwards, 3 star RB (Transferred to Southeastern Louisiana after the 2021 season)
• Caden Clark, 3 star TE (Transferred to Akron after 2021 season)

By my count, 12 total receivers enrolled that were 4 star and up including a 5 star in JaCorey Brooks.

Of all those highly-rated offensive skill player recruits, only a few of them actually recorded stats in the Texas game: Kobe Prentice (5 catches, 68 yards), Jermaine Burton (the Georgia transfer, 2 catches 58 yards and a TD), Amari Niblack (2 catches, 45 yards, 1 TD). As for the running backs, Jase McClellan had 12 carries for 45 yards and Roydell Williams had 6 carries for 12 yards.

Obviously as you can see a lot of those guys have transferred already.

But for the guys still there, this is not great production considering how highly touted most of these guys were. There’s 24 names here and only 4 of them were three star players.

Look, I’m not saying every 4 and 5 star player should turn into a superstar future first round NFL draft pick. A lot of these guys don’t pan out. The recruiting rankings are far from perfect.

But you’d think at Alabama they would have at least been able to develop ONE of these guys into a star player. Not ONE of these guys that they recruited out of high school has become a true stud. Their two best offensive players of the past few years have been Gibbs and Jameson Williams, both transfers.

How well is the talent really being developed down there in Tuscaloosa? Why are the only skill players that have panned out well for Bama over the past few years transfers? Since Devonta Smith, Jaylen Waddle and Najee Harris went to the NFL after the 2020 season, Bama has relied almost exclusively on transfer players to produce for them on offense. Why do you need transfer players if you’re Alabama? You have the most talented players in the country. You shouldn’t have to import offensive skill talent from other programs. The only reason you’d have to do that is… you’re not developing talent well. You’re not turning your stud recruits into stud players. You’re not realizing their potential.

College football is about developing talent as much as it is about recruiting it. A player’s college years are extremely important in the development process. You’ve got to turn high school football players into college football players and then into NFL football players. That’s the job of a coach at a big time college football program like Alabama. Bama is definitely slipping in this area.

Bama recruiting will start slipping in the very near future. Just watch. They miss the playoffs again this year and that’ll be two straight years. That’s bad for recruiting.

High school coaches will obviously take notice of that, but they’ll especially notice the lack of development. Bama is doing less with more nowadays. Best recruiting classes in the nation and still having to rely on the portal for offensive skill players? Defenses consistently underperforming despite being hyped up as the best in America?

Eventually high school coaches are going to notice this if they haven’t already. They’re going to tell their best players that Bama is just a great brand name but not much else nowadays—you’re not going to get developed as well there as you would somewhere else. Like, say, Georgia.

Look I’m not saying Bama is a bad program now. Not at all. But they’re no longer the gold standard of college football. Georgia is. Bama is slipping.

Assuming this isn’t the only game they lose this season, this will be the first time in the CFP era they miss the playoff in consecutive seasons. From 2014-2021, they only missed the playoff once, in 2019, because Tua broke his hip later in the season and they lost 2 games in the regular season. Now they’re on pace to miss it twice in a row for the first time. Even during the BCS era when only 2 teams got a chance at a championship, they were in the mix just about every year—2009, 2011, and 2012 winning the national title.

And Bama will lose again this season, by the way. They might even finish with 3-4 losses. ESPN and all the analysts will probably just assume Bama wins out and bounces back, but they’re wrong. Bama will lose at least 2 more games this season.

Texas was better than them last night—in fact I don’t think it was even debatable. Bama got beat straight up. It wasn’t on some last second fluke play, or luck, or bullshit. Most of the time that’s the only way to beat Bama. Like last year’s Tennessee game, Tennessee’s game winning drive was a miracle. The fact that that kick went in? Unbelievable. And it was at home. The LSU game last year, too: went to overtime, super dramatic and thrilling. The A&M loss in 2021–last second field goal, pretty miraculous game in general.

That’s typically been how Bama loses games—thrilling, down to the wire games that could’ve gone either way, and the team that beats Bama feels extremely lucky to have escaped with the win. (Another example: the Kick Six game). There have only been a few games in the past 10-15 years where Bama got beaten convincingly—really and truly got bested. That was the 2018 National Championship against Clemson, which they lost 44-16. By far the worst loss of the Saban era. Just got absolutely run off the field.

The other game was the 2014 playoff against Ohio State. I know the final score was 42-35 but it was 42-28 up until very late in the game. Plus Bama was up 21-6 in the first half and then gave up a 36-7 scoring run to Ohio State for basically the second, third and most of the fourth quarters until Bama added a late touchdown to make it closer. This game wasn’t anywhere near as big a blowout as the Clemson game, but if you watched the second half of this game you could see pretty clearly that Bama was getting dominated.

Another one is the 2019 LSU game. LSU was up 33-13 at the half in that game but Bama really stormed back in the second half. It was 46-34 late but Bama added a late touchdown to get close, but never actually got the opportunity to win it. They never had the ball in the final minutes when it was a one-possession game.

This game against Texas was a 10 point loss at home. You know the last time they lost at home by double digits under Nick Saban? 

Never. Not even his rocky 2007 debut season. Even that year, which saw Bama lose 6 games including 4 in a row and 3 of those 6 losses at home, they never lost by more than a score. No double digit losses. 

• 2008: didn’t lose until SEC Championship game, then also lost bowl game Utah
• 2009: undefeated 
• 2010: lost by 14 on the road to South Carolina, by 3 on the road to LSU, and then by just 1 point at home to Auburn. 
• 2011: lost by 3 points in OT to LSU at home 
• 2012: lost by 5 points to Manziel at home 
• 2013: no home losses, only loss was final regular season game to auburn (kick six) and then also lost bowl game to Oklahoma
• 2014: lost 23-17 on the road to Ole Miss, then 42-35 in playoff to Ohio State 
• 2015: lost 43-37 at home to Ole Miss early in the season 
• 2016: went undefeated until they got to the national championship game 
• 2017: lost to Auburn 26-14 on the road but then still won National Championship 
• 2018: went undefeated until National Championship Game 
• 2019: lost 46-41 to LSU at home, then lost 48-45 to Auburn on the road with backup QB Mac Jones in
• 2020: went undefeated 
• 2021: lost 41-38 on last second field goal at A&M. Then lost 33-18 to Georgia in the Natty, however that game was a lot closer than the score and Alabama very well might have won it if Jameson Williams didn’t blow out his knee. 
• 2022: both losses very close and on the road at Tennessee and LSU

Alabama losing like this is unheard of. It does not happen. They’ve never lost by double digits at home under Saban. 

What we just saw last night is something we’ve never seen before in the Nick Saban era. Alabama, at home, got thoroughly and convincingly beaten. Texas was the better team. If they replayed that game next week, Texas probably wins it again.

This is also the first time ever under Saban that Bama has been 1-1. Not really a big deal but previously the earliest they’ve lost in the season was week 3 in 2015. They’ve never been .500 in a season under Saban, excluding his first year of 2007. And what this speaks to is how successful they’ve been in non-conference regular season matchups. Because that’s typically who you play early in the season. This was the first time since 2007 Saban lost to a non-conference opponent.

Things are happening now at Bama that haven’t happened for a long time. And this is my overall point: the air of invincibility is gone with Alabama. Bama doesn’t feel like Bama anymore.

Bama just lost at home to a non-conference team coached by one of his former assistants. That should not happen. He used to never lose to former assistants. He used to never lose at home. He used to never lose to non-conference opponents. Now he just did all three at once. 

Bama isn’t Bama anymore. Prime Nick Saban would never have lost that game. He would’ve probably won it 48-10, honestly.

And there’s no excuses. There’s no “well this is a down year.” Hell no. People on ESPN were picking Bama to win the National Championship this year. They were ranked #4 coming into the season. They’ve got the most talented roster in the country. Plus, Bama doesn’t have down years under Saban.

I know Bama lost Bryce Young, but that’s exactly my point: Bryce Young was keeping this program afloat the past couple years. He masked all the flaws and made it seem like things were better than they truly were at Bama. Without Bryce Young last year, Bama was a 4, maybe even 5 loss team.

And this is why I was so down on Alabama coming into this season. I firmly believe that without Bryce Young they would have struggled to win 8 games last year, and somehow we’re supposed to expect Bama to be better this year despite losing the one player who singlehandedly carried the program on his shoulders for the past two seasons? And not only Bryce Young but also Jahmyr Gibbs and Will Anderson?

It threw me off when I saw all these people picking Bama to make the playoff and win the Natty before the season started. I was like, “Do they know something here that I don’t?”

No, it turns out they didn’t. They just bought into the Bama brand name without actually taking a closer look. Or they just looked at the blue chip ratio and saw Bama was at 90% and that was enough for them.

But for me, this loss to Texas is confirmation that Bama isn’t Bama anymore. I’m approaching this from the angle of, “Bama isn’t Bama anymore, so why is that?” And to me the answer is that Nick Saban is just getting old. I did the research, this is right around the age that Bobby Bowden and JoePa started to fall off.

This is an irreversible and permanent decline at Alabama. Nick Saban is not immune from the aging process.

I’m not emotional about this. I’m not sitting here wanting this to happen, I’m just one of the few who will go out on a limb and say it. I’m just pointing it out. We can all see that Bama has regressed as a program and just pointing it out, because a lot of voices in the media won’t.

I heard on Zach Smith’s show the other day that after the 2020 season, when Sark got the Texas Longhorns job, Saban really wanted Sark to stay. In fact, Saban and the Alabama brass wanted Sark to stay so badly that they offered to name him the head coach in waiting at Alabama if he stayed. Meaning he would be guaranteed to be Saban’s replacement whenever Saban decided to retire.

Of course Sark turned it down, and there are a few key reasons why. For one thing, Texas was offering him the head coaching job now, vs. Alabama promising him the head coaching job in the future. Two, it’s just way more money being a head coach than an offensive coordinator—even an offensive coordinator + head coach in waiting. Third, why would you ever want to replace Nick Saban at Alabama? That’s the worst job in America. You replace the greatest to ever do it, knowing there’s no possible way you can ever surpass his legacy? Why would Sark want that. The Texas job is just way more appealing. All he has to do at Texas is bring them back to national relevancy. At Bama, even if he wins a Natty, the fanbase goes, “Saban won six of them.” If Sark wins a Natty at Texas, he’s a legend there for the rest of his life. He’s the man who made Texas proud again. Free barbecue for life.

Way more upside to the Texas job, way more downside to the Bama job.

But here’s what really struck me: if Saban promised to name Sark the HCIW, that means Saban is thinking about retirement. Or at least he knows the end is near. And this was after the 2020 season, too. Three seasons ago.

If Sark had accepted, would Saban already be retired? Would this be his last season? You don’t seriously entertain an offer like that, if you’re Sark, without knowing what kind of time-frame you’re looking at. The first question you ask if Saban promises to name you HCIW is, “Well when are you planning on retiring?”

I’m sure they gave Sark some sort of time-table, because if they didn’t, then how could even take the offer seriously at all?

No, I think they told Sark that it would be sooner rather than later. The only frame of reference I have on this is Jimbo Fisher, when he was named HCIW at Florida State after the 2007 season. There was a clause in his contract that said if Bobby Bowden didn’t retire before 2011, FSU would have to pay Jimbo $5 million, basically for wasting his time. He took over as the head coach of Florida State after the 2009 season—the FSU big wigs kinda forced Bobby Bowden out.

I don’t think they want a situation like that at Bama, and I don’t think Saban wants it either. Maybe he doesn’t think they’d ever do it to him, but I’m sure Bobby Bowden thought the same thing. If you think about it, Bobby Bowden was even more important to Florida State than Saban is to Bama. Saban has been at Bama for 16 years—Bobby Bowden was at Florida State for over 30 years. And Florida State was not a good program before Bobby Bowden got there. They only started playing football in 1954, which makes them really young compared to the other big time programs. Programs like Bama, Michigan, Notre Dame—they trace their histories back to the early 1900s and even the 1800s. Bobby Bowden basically built that program. They went from not being in a conference to being in the ACC starting in 1992, and he led them to multiple National Championships. Florida State would not be the program we know them as today without Bowden.

Saban has been great for Alabama. Obviously. He’s been more than great, he’s been the greatest to ever do it. And Alabama had fallen on hard times prior to his arrival there. But Bama was still an elite program before Saban. They had Bear Bryant in the 1960s and 1970s. They won a Championship in 1992 under Gene Stallings. Saban didn’t build the Alabama program from nothing the way Bobby Bowden did at Florida State.

Anyway, if they’d even push Bobby Bowden out the door, I think it’s very possible that happens to Saban. I don’t think it’s warranted now, of course, but the signs of decline are there, and in my opinion, it’ll only keep getting worse.

Saban is signed through 2028, but I don’t think there’s any way he actually finishes out that contract. I think Bama just gave him that contract as if to say, you can stay here as long as you like without ever having to worry about your contract. But both Saban and the Bama big wigs know Saban isn’t staying until 2028.

I think they may have promised Sark that he’d be the head coach of Bama by 2024 or 2025 at the latest.

I thought there was a chance last year was Saban’s curtain call. It obviously didn’t happen, but I think there’s a decent chance it happens this year. College football changes quite a bit next year. You’ve got the 12 team playoff coming, plus the SEC adds Texas and Oklahoma, the Big Ten adds USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington. All the conference realignment stuff goes into effect in 2024. It might be a good time for Saban to hand the program off to someone else if he retires after this season.

But I do not think this season will go well for Alabama. It would not shock me if they lose 3-4 games, maybe even 5 games.

Then again, it’s not looking like their SEC West competition will be able to take advantage of Bama’s fall from grace. Most of the SEC has looked pretty dreadful to start the season off, but the SEC West in particular has done poorly in its non-conference games:

• LSU lost 45-24 to Florida State
• Texas A&M lost 48-33 to Miami
• Bama lost 34-24 at home to Texas

Florida got demolished 24-11 by Utah in week 1. South Carolina, who looked promising coming into this season after the way they ended last year, lost 31-17 to North Carolina in week one. It wasn’t a competitive game.

Tennessee on Sunday was struggling with Austin Peay in the first half but pulled away to get the win in the second half, 30-13. Ole Miss struggled with Tulane on the road, and actually went into the half down 17-10 before pulling away in the second half to win 37-20. Auburn almost lost to Cal last night, too.

Other than Georgia, the SEC has not looked good this year. Double digit losses in some big, high profile, nationally televised non-conference games.

I would say that right now, Georgia should be considered the prohibitive favorites to win the SEC. I’m talking like 90% chance they do. Not only are they the best team in the SEC by a mile, their schedule is cake, too. Tennessee was looking like they’d be the toughest team on Georgia’s schedule but now I don’t even know if Tennessee is any good.

It looks like Georgia is going to sleep walk to 12-0, you might as well just pencil them in for a trip to Atlanta for the SEC Championship right now. I’m telling you—there is nobody in the SEC on their level, or even remotely close to it. It’s crazy to say that the SEC of all conferences is non-competitive just two weeks into the season, but that’s the way it looks right now.

It’s possible that by the end of the season, whichever team emerges from the SEC West—whether it be Bama or LSU or Texas A&M or Ole Miss—has improved and gives Georgia somewhat of a challenge in the SEC Championship game, but even that looks doubtful right now. 

After last week, with FSU demolishing LSU and Clemson losing, it became pretty clear that the ACC was FSU’s for the taking and that they had a great chance at going undefeated. Very clear and straightforward path to the playoffs.

Now the same can be said of Georgia in the SEC.

Obviously I have less faith in Florida State than I do Georgia because FSU hasn’t done it before, but the way it stands right now, those two teams should be undefeated and in the playoff come December. There’s no reason they shouldn’t.

Now things look pretty clear and straightforward for the Texas Longhorns, too. By no means am I expecting them to go 12-0, because I just don’t trust them like that yet. Plus, they have some loseable games on their schedule still upcoming. I’m not going to say “tough” games, but definitely loseable. Or “upsettable.”

• Rivalry game against Oklahoma at a neutral site on October 7
• At Houston October 21
• Vs. BYU on October 28
• Vs. Kansas State on November 4
• At TCU on November 11
• Vs. Texas Tech on November 24

Currently only two of those teams are ranked: Oklahoma at 19 and Kansas State at 15.

If it was Georgia playing this schedule, I would trust them to go undefeated, even though it is a harder schedule than the one Georgia plays this season.

I just don’t know if Texas is consistent enough to go 12-0. I don’t know if I trust them enough to win all the games they’re supposed to win. They still might be one of those teams that can have a letdown game or two, or lose focus.

But the fact remains that they’ve passed their toughest test of the season. Yes, for all the shit I’ve heaped on Alabama thus far, I won’t dispute that Bama is the best team on Texas’s schedule. Again, I’m not saying Bama is bad or anything, they’re just not the Bama we’ve grown accustomed to anymore. They’re still solidly a top-10 program, probably even top 5. But even that is a big deal because for a decade and a half, Bama was THE best program in the country, hands down, not up for debate, case closed. They were a level above even the elite programs. They were in a class of their own. They were #1, and now they’re top 5, which for them—given how they were in a class of their own above everyone else—is a big deal. It feels like they’ve fallen a lot more than they actually have because of how high an altitude they were cruising at for so many years. They have fallen from being super elite, 1 of 1, down to the ranks of the “merely” great programs.

It’s like going from being the President of the United States to being the CEO of Exxon Mobil. You went from being the most powerful man in the world—1 of 1—to being merely one of the most powerful and wealthy people in the world.

And so I don’t think there’s any other team in the Big 12 that is as good as Bama. Even despite the fall off at Bama, they’re still the clear cut best team Texas will play this year in the regular season. It’s not even close. Oklahoma is still a wild card, I don’t know if they’re good again or if they’re still mediocre like they were last season, but I do know they’re not better than Bama.

I’ll put it this way: Texas will probably be favored to win their remaining games this season, but I don’t know if I trust them to maintain focus and discipline the whole way through. I need to see it first before I trust them as a team that can take care of business consistently.

Still, though, Texas should rightfully be favored to win the Big 12 conference and probably get a playoff spot.

So right now we’re up to 3 teams that have a clear and straightforward path to the playoff. They’ve done enough to prove themselves, and all they have to do is win the rest of their games, win their conference, and they should be in the playoff no doubt.

And now this is where the season gets interesting: because there are quite a few teams competing for that 4th and final playoff spot.

You have three Big Ten teams in the top 10 of the AP poll: Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State. All of them have their eyes on the playoff.

Then you’ve got four Pac 12 teams led by USC that think they have a legitimate shot. USC is ranked #5 but you’ve also got Washington at 8, Utah at 12 and Oregon at 13.

Now, Oregon nearly lost to Texas Tech last night and Utah was lucky to escape Baylor with a win. So maybe those teams aren’t all that great. But we will find out sooner or later, and they’re all technically still alive in the Pac 12 race.

Plus, you also have Colorado still in the Pac 12 hunt. I’m not sure how long they will remain unbeaten, but they seem pretty legit so far.

Then you’ve also got Notre Dame sitting there at #9 in the country. They host Ohio State in two weeks and if they win that game, which it looks like they probably will because Ohio State hasn’t looked good, then Notre Dame is firmly in the mix for a playoff spot.

Plus, Alabama technically only has 1 loss. They dropped down to just 10 in the AP Poll, so if they do somehow manage to win out, they’re right back in the playoff mix. The committee and the media will always give Saban the benefit of the doubt, so Bama is not officially done just yet.

Obviously all these races are going to sort themselves out. Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State all play one another and only one of them can make it to the Big Ten Championship game. And as we just went over, Ohio State and Notre Dame play in a couple of weeks.

Utah plays every Pac 12 contender, USC plays all of them plus Notre Dame—the Pac 12 is going to get sorted out as well. Only one team can go undefeated.

But I want to get back to Texas because this is all about them. They won convincingly and it could’ve been even more convincing. They should’ve had a TD early in that game after the first pick on Milroe, Ewers put the ball right on Xavier Worthy’s hands in the end zone but he just dropped it. They had to settle for a field goal there. Ewers should have had 4 TD passes.

Ewers is legit. This was the coming out party. He’s arrived. Now it’s time to see what he can really do. He’s got to continue this momentum if he wants to be the guy that brings Texas back.

And again, credit to Sark. I’m a fan of his, and I’ve been a fan of his ever since that National Championship game during Covid where he was calling the plays for Bama vs. Ohio State. That was when I realized Sark was one of the best—if not the very best—in all of college football when it came to play calling, play design and offensive coordinating.

But beyond just the Xs and Os, give Sark credit for building a winning culture down there. Lots of guys have come to Texas to try to turn things around and they’ve failed. Sark is definitely the best of all the post-Mack Brown Texas head coaches. He’s got a ways to go still before we can definitely and confidently consider Texas back and elite once again, but beating Bama goes a long way.

Sark got his guys to buy in, most importantly. Ewers transferred out of Ohio State because he was partly homesick (he enrolled there early and skipped his senior year of high school, so he was super young), partly because he wasn’t going to get playing time behind CJ Stroud. But Ewers going to Texas wasn’t a sure thing. He could’ve gone anywhere he wanted. He had no shortage of suitors. But he bought into what Sark was selling, and what Sark was building down there, and now the vision is being realized. 

They could have run up the score a bit more but I know how much respect Sark has for Saban, he would never do that. You could tell when they met up at midfield after the game how much it meant to Sark. I’m not sure what was said but it looked like a serious conversation, probably Sark telling Saban how much he appreciates him.

Good for Texas. This was the biggest win the program has had in well over a decade.

Now they’ve got to maintain the momentum.

I mentioned earlier that the 2009 National Championship game was really a turning point moment for both the Texas and Alabama programs. Alabama went on to become the greatest dynasty the sport has ever seen, while Texas went into a decade-plus dark age.

Could this game prove to be another turning point moment for these two programs? Could it be that this marks the end of the Bama dynasty and the potential rise of a Texas dynasty, or at least a new golden age for Texas football?

Only time will tell, and I don’t want to jump the gun, but it would be a bit of poetic justice. In light of all the points I’ve raised about the overall state of the Bama football program and Nick Saban getting older, it wouldn’t shock me if we look back 10 years from now as this game marking the end of the Bama dynasty.

And on the other side, it looks like Texas is well poised for years to come. They’ve got Arch Manning waiting in the wings behind Quinn Ewers, after all….