‘Alabama Factor’ a total dud in disappointing Tide season - AL.com

After suffering a national championship beatdown to Clemson, the worst loss of his Alabama tenure, Nick Saban promised to reestablish the “Alabama Factor.”

Time after time Saban referred back to finding the “Alabama Factor” as his team’s biggest objective as it licked its wounds from the title game loss. Everything Saban did, from the massive staff overhaul to personnel decisions, related back to it.

It was missing in the Clemson loss, Saban said, but the team would have to find it again for the 2019 season. In Saban’s mind, the “Alabama Factor” meant all his players would play with discipline, accountability and a team-first approach to get the Crimson Tide back atop the college football mountaintop. The approach worked for the five national championship teams Saban coached at Alabama, and it’d work again this season.

Consider Saturday’s 48-45 loss to Auburn a resounding statement that effort failed. Beyond being a catchy slogan, the “'Bama Factor” never materialized in a season now guaranteed to be a disappointment. For the first time in school history, Alabama won’t be going to the College Football Playoff. The chance to go to a fifth consecutive national title game to win its third title in the last five years is officially over.

Fans will blame shaky officiating decisions for why Alabama now has two regular season losses, its most in a season since 2010. Saban certainly had issue with two calls -- the decision before halftime to add a second and let Auburn get a field goal off, and the illegal substitution penalty that ended the game.

But when you look at this Alabama team, all the things Saban vowed to reestablish this season were missing in losses to the SEC West’s Tigers. Discipline? Alabama had 13 penalties for 96 yards on Saturday including an inexcusable five false start penalties. On four of Auburn’s six drives that resulted in points, Alabama had penalties that helped the Tigers keep the chains moving. The Tide racked up 515 offensive yards with backup quarterback Mac Jones but gave Auburn 14 points on two interceptions returned for touchdowns. In its last three games against good teams -- all losses -- Alabama has looked sloppy and committed far more unforced errors than you’d ever expect from a Saban coached team. Add all that up and it’s why Auburn has now won two of its last three games over Alabama.

“Everybody has to make decisions that are going to enhance the team’s chances of being successful,” a forlorn Saban explained postgame. “Whether you slap a guy in the head or you rough the quarterback or we don’t snap the ball when we are supposed to...all those things to me are things that we need to have more discipline so we can execute those.”

Saban made clear he thinks it can be a lesson for the team. Unfortunately for the Alabama head coach, the majority of his best students won’t be around next season to hear it. Losing top players to the NFL Draft is nothing new in Tuscaloosa but the horde expected to leave this year could hit Saban’s program particularly hard. Tua Tagovailoa, three of Alabama’s top four receivers and key defensive contributors like Xavier McKinney and Terrell Lewis will all likely be gone, casting serious doubt on whether Alabama can best this year’s 10-win record next season.

This was the year Alabama was supposed to regain its crown, to deny Clemson a chance to solidify itself as the new dynasty. Alabama had the most offensive firepower its ever had in the Saban era, and while there were rightfully questions about the defense heading into the season after Dylan Moses went down, most assumed the defensive guru head coach would figure out a solution eventually. He made it work in 2017 when an injury outbreak ravaged the linebacker position, after all. As long as the team could get that “Alabama Factor” back it would surely be headed to either Atlanta or Phoenix for a national semifinal.

And even after losing Tagovailoa to a season-ending injury against Mississippi State, there was still plenty of reason to believe Alabama could find a way to sneak into the playoff. The Tide would need help, likely in losses from Oklahoma, Georgia and Utah, but as long as it took care of business against Auburn, it would be right in the mix next Sunday when the playoff committee announced its field.

Instead, Alabama is now destined to play in a New Year’s Six bowl its fans couldn’t possibly care less about. It When winning a national championship is the only determiner of a successful season, playing Virginia in the Orange Bowl isn’t going to fire up the masses. They’ll suffer that ignominious fate because Alabama finished the season with zero Top 25 wins and losses to the only two good teams it played. The fact one of them is Auburn plus no playoff in the same year makes it an Alabama fan’s worst nightmare.

The nightmare could last, too.

The window for Saban to win another title at Alabama isn’t closed but it sure feels like it’s closing. It has long felt like an inevitability that Saban would add a seventh national championship, and he still can, but there’s no reason to expect he’ll have a better shot next season. Outside of a major talent infusion this offseason, Saban’s Alabama program will enter the new decade without the necessary talent or depth to be college football’s best team.

Saban may still believe in the message behind the “Alabama Factor” but it’s time to bury the slogan. It didn’t work this season and there are growing questions on when, if ever, Alabama can rediscover the style that made it college football’s most dominant program last decade.

John Talty is the SEC Insider for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @JTalty.

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2019-12-01 06:54:00Z
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