Bring on Notre Dame

Nick Saban’s newest mental nugget is that success does not occur on a continuum. What he means by this is that just because you have had success in the past doesn’t promise that success will happen in the future.When the 2012 Alabama football season began, it mirrored the 2010 season. It was the season subsequent to a BCS National Championship. That 2010 team was perhaps Saban’s most talented team, but in many ways it was his most disappointing team in his six years at the Capstone. Why? Because that team failed to understand the notion of team? Because they had already tasted a rib-eye from a five-star restaurant and they were no longer hungry for it? Because of lack of leadership? Injuries? Who can say, really…the team did not perform to which it was capable.Saban undoubtedly learned a great deal from that 2010 team, because it is evident in the way this year’s team, an arguably less-talented team, has performed.If you’ve watched Alabama play this season, you have to like this team. There are no great stars. No Trent Richardsons. No Mark Ingrams. On defense, there’s no Hightower sniper in the middle, no Red Barron circling deep, and no assassin on the Arenas edges. But somehow, this team of ordinary men continues to find ways to achieve the extraordinary. This team has done two things that last year’s team failed to do: beat LSU in the regular season and win the SEC championship. Just as one might make a case that the 2010 team underachieved, one might just as sure conclude that this team has over-performed.Although success doesn’t occur over a continuum, learning does. This is the greatest evidence that the Saban’s patented Process is working. Over the last two seasons, Alabama has shown tremendous resiliency after a loss. The lessons learned from the unsavory losses to Auburn in 2010 and LSU in 2011 have bled over to 2012. Credit to Nick Saban. He has taught them how to overcome adversity.In both 2009 and 2011, it took the Arkansas game for me to believe that we had a great team. This year, I knew it when we played Michigan. That throttling showed me how good of a team we could have. Save the Texas A&M game, we have been that team. But even the Texas A&M game spoke to me. Down 20-0, tired and battered from a scrum in Baton Rouge, Alabama could have rolled over. But the team decided that the game and the season were worth fighting for. And dadgumit if they didn’t come back and almost win the game.The Texas A&M game had some of the most exciting moments in all of the season because Alabama refused to roll over and die. In many ways, that was a win for Alabama. A moral victory, if there is such a thing, because Alabama did what was right. It didn’t give up and fought all the way to the end.I think their mental toughness in the Texas A&M game helped them to beat Georgia.Some people say that Alabama is a lucky football team because we have “snuck in” the national championship game for the last two seasons. Let me put that notion to bed. The Oregons of the world, the Kansas States: you had your chance, and you lost. Alabama has made it to the national title game for the past two seasons because Alabama does something others fail to do in late November: it continues to win. A 7-5 team wouldn’t be so lucky. Over the last few years, we are 14-0, 10-3, 12-1, and 12-1. Lucky? Perhaps a bit. Good is more like it.Even the 10-3 team was six points away from making it to the national title game. Toss out the South Carolina debacle in Columbia in early October. Alabama lost to LSU in Baton Rouge by three points, and Auburn in Tuscaloosa by one point. Six more points and Alabama would have been in Tempe playing the Oregon Ducks.It’s been a good run.And now, Alabama is facing its toughest test of the season. Yes, for all of you unbelievers, I said it: Alabama is facing its toughest test of the season. I believe this because I believe Notre Dame carries that same indomitable spirit as Alabama. Notre Dame may not be as talented. Deep. But Notre Dame believes. And Notre Dame will never give up.Expect to see the full Manti in early January.Let us not fall into that line of thinking that the game is already won. That’s the kind of thing that gets you beat (think Miami in the 1992 National Championship game versus Alabama). If Alabama starts thinking it is good and will easily lick Notre Dame, it will be in for a surprise come 7 January. But I don’t believe Saban will allow such thoughts to stealthily creep up into our pretty crimson helmets. Never underestimate the heart of a champion or the “luck” of the Irish, Saban is already preaching.But I believe in my team. I believe that if Alabama takes that never quit, never die attitude into Miami, it will come home with its fifteenth national championship. Throw out history. Throw out the fact that Alabama has only beaten Notre Dame once in its history. Alabama continues to do the unprecedented in Nick Saban’s tenure as head football coach.History can repeat itself, or we can learn from it. Alabama’s motivation is the 1973 Sugar Bowl game: 24-23 Notre Dame. The 1974 Orange Bowl Game: 13-11 Notre Dame. The 1976 game in South Bend: 21-18 Notre Dame. The 1980 game at Legion Field: 7-0 Notre Dame. Roll all of that up into one ball of frustration, a forty-year continuum, if you will, and take it out on the Irish.Notre Dame has had a good season. But this year, going hat to hat, I’m betting on Alabama.No matter what happens, I will be proud of this team because it showed how to overcome adversity. It displayed what it means to never give up. Now that’s the kind of team that we can all learn from.That’s the kind of team that teaches us how to live life.It is rare that you find a team that literally inspires you. To those twenty-year old kids that suit up in crimson every Saturday, you have inspired me.You have made me a believer.Make no mistake, the situation in Miami will be adverse. You have a worthy opponent. But if you can muster over one more hurdle, a coveted crystal prize—a gem more precious than old gold—awaits.