I am not a fan of the University of Alabama’s football team. But I am a football fan, an SEC fan, and a Southerner, and part of me has been fascinated with their program ever since hiring Nick Saban. There really has been nothing like Alabama’s dominance in sports, at least not in my lifetime. Although I am not a fan of the team, I am curious as to just how far they can go and for how long. And besides, I would rather see them win a National Championship than a Yankee school. To see how well they’ve recruited, year after year, is nothing short of mindboggling.
However, this year has looked different. They are currently out of the top 5 and may soon be out of the top 10. Their sense of invincibility is gone, not only after losses to Tennessee and LSU, but also two uninspired wins against Texas and Texas A&M. Nick Saban looks human now. Several years ago, I commented that growing up I never thought I would hear a debate about who was the best coach in Alabama history. Obviously, Bear was number one, so the debate was over who was the second-best coach, but now there is a debate between Saban and Bryant. A few years later, I said the debate was now over who the third best was, because Saban had managed to take over from Bear Bryant. And though I’m not willing to bump Saban down to number two, or even start having a debate over that topic again, this season has not looked the same.
I used to fear Alabama the most after either a loss or a close victory that should have been a blowout. I knew that meant Saban would ride his team hard all week, and they would take it out against the poor team that had the misfortune to play them next. But, this is no longer the case. After barely beating Texas A&M, they would follow the next game by losing to Tennessee, and while they would get a solid win against Mississippi State the following week, it wasn’t quite the blowout we’ve come to expect following an Alabama loss, especially against an unranked opponent. The next game, against LSU, would be their second loss of the season. At this point, it will not only take a miracle for Alabama to make the playoffs, but it will also take another miracle for them to even get into the SEC Championship. This is not the same Alabama team we saw even two years ago.
So, what happened? As with many things in life, it is multicausal. Although, it is not a recruiting problem. Alabama continues to have its pick of the litter, and this year has been no exception. As long as Saban can truthfully say that he has never had a recruiting class fail to win a National Championship, he will be able to constantly bring in the best college athletes from all over the country. Part of it is, to be sure, that Alabama’s dominance has made other teams better, and in some ways, Saban is the victim of his own success. His coaching tree is outstanding, and when his assistant coaches go on to become the head coach of other teams, they understand him and his system better than anyone else.
But one reason towers above everything else – Alabama has lost its discipline, as Paul Finebaum recently noted. This is very obviously true, and the repeated sloppy play is testament to this. But this just raises the issue as to why the discipline has slipped in Tuscaloosa. Sure, it’s difficult for teams to be this good for as long as Alabama has without stagnation setting in, but frequent turnover in college sports should negate this factor, especially when Saban is constantly driving his team. In my opinion, the reason for this shift is Saban’s embrace of leftism. In 2020, during the George Floyd riots, Saban marched with his players in support of BLM; later in 2022, he publicly called for the passage of a voting rights bill that would have made it infinitely easier for Democrats to rig an election.
Since the 1990s or so, SEC coaches have not been known for their staunch defense of Dixie, her people, and her symbols; both Steve Spurrier and Tommy Tuberville were adamantly against the Confederate Flag, as they thought it hurt their recruiting efforts. And while I dislike what they did, what Saban did was far worse. First off, BLM is far more radical than what Tuberville or Spurrier were involved in, BLM is an anti-God, anti-family, communist organization bent on the destruction of the West, while the John Lewis Voting Rights Act would completely federalize elections, further eroding the Constitution. To make matters even worse, what Saban did was spit in the eye of Alabama’s conservative fanbase. I know that blacks in Alabama tend to support the University of Alabama, but the fanbase is, for the most part, White, Southern, and conservative. The summer of 2020 was horrific; White America, especially Dixie, was under siege and Nick Saban, a man whom a solid majority of the state admire greatly (Auburn fans are a minority), joined in on the pile-on.
From that moment forward, his players sensed they were now in control. He was willing to anger Alabama’s most devoted fans to appease them. That Saban discipline is now gone, and it leads to sloppy play. Saban was worried about recruiting in the future if he said nothing, but he failed to realize that recruiting was only part of his success. It was the discipline. Alabama teams did not make many mistakes, and when they did, those mistakes were quickly corrected. Those days are over, Saban showed weakness to his team, and they responded in kind. They no longer fear Saban. They no longer fear sloppy play. By trying to save his dynasty, Saban may have very well killed it. That discipline took years to cultivate, and it’s not coming back.
In the long run, this is probably a good thing. I love football, and I love Dixie, and while I will never get behind the “F*** sportsball” mentality from certain corners of the Dissident Right, I do recognize that SEC football is our Achilles’ heel, the Ole’ Miss football team recently forced Mississippi to change its flag. Even more disturbing, a black Alabama football player was caught beating his White girlfriend on video, but still had the support of not only Saban, but even the girl’s father! The problem is not football in and of itself, but when football becomes idolatry. That is what has happened here and Alabama’s fall from grace may, God willing, help break that hold. It may only be anecdotal evidence, but I do know hardcore, devoted Alabama fans, as in go to every home or away game, that no longer have one bit of Alabama paraphernalia because of their disgust over Saban’s stunt with BLM. Alabama’s football program returning to earth may help even more people move away from idolizing football.
A similar situation has occurred at OU. I was way ahead of the curve on it and saw it coming from a mile off back in the early 2000s, and sh*tcanned the Sooners and college football generally shortly thereafter; I did the same with the vaunted NFL a decade earlier. But, like you, I love football; I come from what I’ve often described as a “football town,” where our H.S. team has won five state championships and seven state runners up trophies in roughly forty years. That’s an average of roughly one state championship appearance every five years or so, for all you non-mathematicians out there. And that is to say nothing of all the quarter and semi-finals appearances in between, whose name is Legion, for they are many. I’ll stick to H.S. football and below from here on out; it’s the purest form and level of the sport IMHO in any case. Indeed, once you get above about the 3-A H.S. level, I start losing interest quick, fast and in a hurry.
ONE OF the main problems with caring what and getting all into and focusing so much energy on what grown men are doing with a ball is … it’s “while” The Titanic is sinking. It’s as if we’re passengers ON the Titanic and instead of looking for anything that floats and other supplies we start playing ball on deck … as we sink … as we boil with the other frogs …
What would Soloman say if here today to witness ALL this?
College football (basketball, baseball, soccer etc.) players aren’t “grown men” by any stretch of the imagination. They’re late-term adolescents in a grown man’s (or, woman’s) body. If you don’t believe me, look at the reaearch done by multitudes of scientists on the subject; a man’s (or, woman’s) brain doesn’t even fully develop until, on average, it is 25 years old. This is why (and as a former gymnastics coach) it often confused me that elite olympic gymnasts for example would do tricks that most any of the rest of us would assess and go, “uh, no, I’m not doing that because I could literally fall and break my neck.”
All of this of course brings into question the “wisdom” of allowing pre-adult adolescents to vote in our vaunted “democratic” elections. It’s stupid beyond belief, but anyway…
Trust the Science!
You’re correct Harmonica. Being an LSU Fan, I have admired the discipline of Alabama players for years. For the last two or three decades LSU has recruited many “student athletes” who possessed great talent but were lacking in character. Coach Saban did a good job for us before leaving to coach the Dolphins but our other coaches coddled the players to the extent of enabling criminal behavior. Consequently, we seemed graduate almost as many convicted felons as NFL prospects. I had surmised that the mistakes made and penalties incurred do to a lack of character or discipline is what had kept LSU from beating Alabama more often, but now it seems that things have evened out across the SEC.
Harmonica, I live in Mississippi, and it was a Miss. State player in 2020 who got the ball rolling to change the state flag. In the Summer of 2020, he threatened to leave the team if the flag wasn’t changed….then all hell broke loose. And, boy did those Republicans get to work. The NCAA and the SEC said ‘no more tournaments in Mississippi until the flag (with the Confederate flag) is changed’. Never mind the fact that Miss. State, Ole Miss and USM had all stopped flying the flag on campus prior to this. That wasn’t good enough. But there are still many of us (especially in the rural areas of the state) who still fly the flag we had for over 100 years. And we stopped watching college football. We have better ways now to spend 3-7 hours on Saturdays: hunt deer, fish, bust firewood, boil peanuts…… A Country Boy Can Survive.
Agree with you totally Rebel.I watched sports as a young man and quit watching in my 20’s.There were few Whites and I saw what it was becoming.Why should I support a bunch of savages.Why do Whites at this point watch the madness.Why enable the Jew team owners to get richer while they use sports to destroy our White culture.The darkie players can say anything anti-White and the Jew owners smile and many Whites continue to spend money.I tell everyone,don’t enable this anti-White ensemble.I’ve always been amazed at some Whites who worship Black/Brown athletes and gush over their every detail.This country is too far gone to bring back the good ways.I say let it collapse because why let them have what we built.And for Harmonica I guess I’m one of those you mentioned who prefer to drop sports rather than enable Black heros and their White gf’s with rap and gyrations as the backdrop.Also colleges are nothing but cesspools to indoctrinate our youth.Tech schools and unpaid job apprenticeships should replace college.All I know who attended four year college got out and then learned the job at whatever company hired us.Each person could work free at a company,learn the job and at the same time deprive the anti-White Jew contrived education system of money.Simple.
I’ m not a football fan by any means but I do think Bear Bryant was the best coach of
all time. He had character. While the other teams were bringing in blacks on their
teams, Bear Bryant refused……until he started loosing. He was the last to bring
blacks on his team. The stadium in Birmingham is all but gone and should have
been preserved.
College football is a professional recruiting pipeline that has zero connection to the purpose of a university. It corrupts everything that it touches because it sacrifices all principles to the single objective of winning games and recruiting a new gang of gorillas for the next season. This article mentions several examples of how college football has degraded our culture and heritage.
Debating the merits and accomplishments of one coach or program over another is like prostitutes arguing over who was the last to lose her virginity. Doesn’t matter – you’re all whores now!
When a Southern man is willing to furl the flag of his ancestors because some thug in dreadlocks threatens to quit the team then there is simply no hope for our people. I don’t care how much you may be entertained by this spectacle – Southern nationalists should shun and denounce this disgusting institution.
It just happened to be I was at an English pub for lunch out west here the day after the hope of England Africanis missed the goal shoot off that decided the Winner of the European Soccer Championship, Rage against the machine was blaring its pinko filth into the bar as I walked in. Later that day a Man flying a Confederate flag in the back of his truck restored my Faith in the Anglo Saxon, let me tell you.
I believe it was the communist manifesto that said “a Mans life is just a relay of impulses”, it’s so evident with Sports fans, they got you all by the short hairs, it’s not talked enough about here on ID but we need to put up a Front on this Digital enslavement they have planned for us and our Children. I use to Love watching American Football, how anyone can resume to pre covid lifestyles and entertainments right now just blows my mind. Line up for your inoculation farm animal, here’s your Digital slave pass for the Game.
Not to be to Negative, there is a universal law at play here, the more our enemies Dark power rises, the more powerful the light becomes to top it. Prayers are being magnified, don’t throw it away on worldly entertainments right now!, or let our enemies control our impulses, we need to look to God and ask him for his Strength and Power. The ultimate impulse, his Grace and Love.
Game over. We Win!