If you’re an Alabama football fan who firmly believes in stats or trends, you’ll be happy to know that Alabama has been 9-0 in the regular season since 2010 after suffering a loss.
Even better?
The adversary after three of these Crimson Tide losses was the State of Mississippi. Saturday is four.
What do you say about this? In those nine wins, Alabama beat their opponents 271-16, including a 92-24 margin over Mississippi State.
It’s safe to say that Alabama reacts pretty well after a loss.
Nine regular season losses in just over a decade are no complaints. Unless it’s in Alabama. The standard has been set. Anything less than perfection is unacceptable. It’s a strict standard, but Alabama coaches, players and staff have accepted it as the standard.
How to watch Alabama vs. Mississippi State
Alabama fell short of that standard last week against Texas A&M and the result was a 41-28 loss, which ended a 19-game winning streak and 100-game winning streak. consecutive against unranked opponents.
“The key is for everyone in our organization to respond in the right way to the issues that we need to fix,” Nick Saban said earlier this week.
If you want to know where Alabama mentally follows the astonishing loss of College Station, look no further than Will Anderson Jr.
The second-year linebacker was asked earlier this week about what had been said in the College Station locker room afterwards.
Anderson, who leads the team with 11 tackles for a loss, did not speak but stared into the Zoom camera and shook his head for 10 seconds. The defensive leader of Crimson Tide was clearly frustrated and needed a push from the media relations team to respond.
“That’s what I told you, football has to be the most important thing,” Anderson said finally. “When you come to Alabama, that’s the norm. Football is the most important thing and that’s what I expressed to the team. This is how it’s going to be, and it’s going to be that.
It’s a lack of defense over the last five minutes that is part of the plethora of mistakes Alabama made over the past week.
The Crimson Tide held the Aggies in check for most of the second half, allowing just 17 yards. But with Alabama leading by a touchdown and needing a defensive save, the defense failed, and the Aggies only needed two minutes and six plays to go 65 yards for the tying score.
Alabama collapsed defensively against in the last practice of the game. Texas A&M traveled 54 yards into the field to set Seth Small for the winning field.
The defense should not bear all the blame. There were plenty to go around.
There was Aggie’s kickoff return for 96 yards for a touchdown after Alabama’s blocked punt for a score. It shattered Alabama’s momentum.
There was the drive that ended on the 1-yard line following an interception by Bryce Young in the end zone.
Then there was another practice where Alabama settled for a field goal after failing to score from first and first from TAMU’s 3-yard line. Alabama passed all three downs.
There was more, of course, but the point is clear – Alabama’s standard was not met last Saturday. And there’s a lot to work out if the Crimson Tide wants to get back into the national title discussion.
Alabama can do it; it’s done several times. After losing The Game of The Century to LSU in 2011, Alabama won the rematch in the national title game.
After an unexpected loss to the Johnny Manziel Aggies in 2012, the Crimson Tide fought back and won the championship against Notre Dame.
In 2015, Derrick Henry and Alabama were knocked out at home by Ole Miss, regrouped and marched to another championship by beating Clemson.
As recently as 2017, Alabama lost to Auburn late in the season and still qualified for the playoffs as a No.4 seed, which gave us the second and 26th against Georgia. and the 17th national title from Crimson Tide.
“I don’t think that’s something the other teams are doing, we’re training our way right now,” said Anderson. “We have to bounce back, pay attention to the little details and realize that this is the most important thing right now.”
