What's wrong at Alabama? And can Nick Saban fix it?
The guy who owns Freezing Cold Takes probably built a beach house somewhere off bad Internet “The Alabama dynasty is dead” columns, so I come not to bury Nick Saban’s program.
This isn’t a postmortem. Just an annual exam for a program whose check engine light usually never turns on. But Alabama is officially at a crossroads.
For more than 15 years, the Crimson Tide have experienced unparalleled success under the leadership from the sport’s greatest coach of all-time.
After losing last year’s national championship to rival Georgia in gut-wrenching fashion, 2022 was billed as a statement season from Saban and Alabama.
2021 was a “rebuilding year,” but the Tide entered the fall a near-unanimous No. 1 team, with by far the nation’s most talented roster.
They brought back the two best individual players in America in reigning Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young and all-world pass rusher Will Anderson, and supplemented the depth chart with the best running back from the ACC, a former 5-star corner from LSU and (allegedly) the top receiver from the Bulldogs.
There was legitimate “this could be Nick Saban’s best team ever” talk. As in, historically great for a coach who already has seven national championships to his name.
Yet here we are in early November, and Alabama is 7-2 (4-2 in the SEC) after losing at LSU on Saturday. The Tide are out of the College Football Playoff discussion and in need of a miracle to even win the SEC West.
To date, the Tide’s best win is a hang-on-to-your butts road victory against a three-loss Texas team featuring a backup quarterback. They aren’t getting blown out, but they’ve lost twice on walk-off plays because of a lack of execution, discipline and poor coaching.
Suddenly, Nick Saban’s team is the one making too many mistakes. Suddenly, Nick Saban’s team is the one that looks ill-prepared for the moment — like its in-game management late vs. Tennessee or a 12th man sprinting off the field, coming out of a timeout mind you, just before LSU ran its game-winning 2-point conversion Saturday.
This doesn’t happen to the Tide. They’re the big, bad boogeyman who scares opponents into turtling.
But not in 2022.
“Look, I can’t blame the players,” Saban said on Saturday, totally owning another sloppy performance from the Tide.
“I’m responsible for all this stuff. So if we didn’t do it right, that’s on me.”
WHAT’S WRONG WITH ALABAMA IN 2022?
Time will tell if Kirby Smart and Georgia have ascended as the new king’s of the sport, but it’s been clear for several years now that the recruiting and development in Athens has put the two programs on nearly equal footing.
Saban showed Smart the blueprint. You build a machine on the recruiting trail, but the beast only operates at peak efficiency if you develop and coach up that awesome talent.
After losing a record 15 NFL Draft picks, including five 1st Rounders, Georgia opted not to take a single transfer from the portal. this offseason. In a supposed “rebuilding year,” Georgia chose to reload with its own developed talent.
Smart’s Bulldogs are now 9-0 after beating Tennessee and ranked No. 1 — exactly where everyone thought Alabama would be at this time.
So what’s happened to the Tide? Why is Alabama in position for perhaps its most disappointing season of the Nick Saban era?
I don’t think it’s too simplistic to say that for the first time since Saban has been at Alabama that the team is overall poorly coached. Too often, they’re undisciplined (No. 125 nationally in penalties) and unprepared (see: Tennessee hitting the same stacked deep-shot play over and over or the final 2-point play vs. LSU). They don’t make in-game adjustments. They don’t put their players in the best positions to succeed.
The Tide have as much raw talent on their roster as any team in the country, but the standard of development has notably slipped the last few years, too.
Like at receiver, where Alabama previously produced a historic crop of 1st Round picks, but had to pluck Jameson Williams from the transfer portal last season to be its No. 1 target — despite a room loaded with blue-chip recruits. The Tide doubled down on that philosophy for the 2022 campaign, grabbing Jermaine Burton and Tyler Harrell from the transfer portal as instant impact playmakers. Instead, neither player has panned out, while former top recruits like Ja’Corey Brooks, JoJo Earle or Traeshon Holden haven’t made a leap, either. Alabama’s wideouts can’t get separation, and they lead the SEC in dropped passes.
What about at the offensive line? Alabama, which has 15!!!!! former 4 or 5-star recruits in the OL room, had to take a transfer tackle from Vanderbilt this offseason. That says all you need to know about the development within that unit, which has its third OL coach in four years.
Bryce Young is a magician, but even the nation’s best quarterback can’t escape constant pressure. The Tide’s OL is among the most penalized units in the country and has shown little ability to become a smash-mouth group.
So what happens when receivers can’t get open and the offensive line can’t block? Your offense, which is still buoyed by the brilliance of Young and do-every-thing tailback Jahmyr Gibbs, has no identity. By struggling to protect Young, the Tide have their worst explosive pass rating since 2013 —when Saban then opted to modernize the offense by hiring Lane Kiffin.
Predictable play-calling doesn’t help, either, which is why offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien seems destined for a new sideline zip code in 2023.
But that likely won’t be the only staff change happening in the offseason.
With Anderson, Dallas Turner and a deep secondary, Alabama’s defense, led by Pete Golding, was supposed to be awesome in 2022. But like the entire Crimson Tide team, they’ve merely been good.
They pressure the quarterback, but don’t force turnovers, commit way-too-many penalties (sensing a theme here!) in the secondary and lack a step-on-your-throat nastiness typically permeating through a Tide defense.
The standard — on offense, defense and special teams — is off this season at Alabama. The team’s lack of discipline and execution is on the coaches – from Nick Saban to Bill O’Brien and Pete Golding, to the rest of the staff.
Paul Finebaum has hammered Saban all year, and the famous radio host went on ESPN over the weekend and said, “The window on the Saban dynasty is closing.”
Maybe. But not if Saban rediscovers what fueled previous Alabama Death Stars.
However the next few weeks play out for the Tide, Saban will enter an offseason tasked with taking a hard look under the hood of his program.
After a disappointing season, he must replace the school’s best quarterback of all time who never won a title as a starter because everything else at Alabama is suddenly closer to the mean with the rest of college football.