In fact, each of the last three years, the Crimson Tide has either been undefeated or near the top of the SEC heading into November.
In all three of those seasons, Alabama suffered a late season collapse in the final month. The Tide has lost a remarkable nine straight games in November dating back to the 2005 season.
“Everything that I’ve talked about is why you don’t play well in November,” head coach Nick Saban said. “You get satisfied, you lose your focus, you don’t take care of business, you don’t have the proper respect to continue to prepare the way you need to.”
In 2005, Alabama was 8-0 and ranked No. 4 with just three games remaining. After a win over Mississippi State, the Tide lost a heartbreaker in overtime to LSU. The next week they were dominated by in-state rival Auburn.
The following year, head coach Mike Shula directed Alabama to a 6-3 record, but in the final month the Tide lost to Mississippi State and for the second straight season, lost to LSU and Auburn to finish a measly 6-6. The lackluster performance down the stretch cost Shula his job.
Last year, Saban arrived and again had the team off to a great start. After a 41-17 win over Tennessee, Alabama was 6-2 and right at the top of the SEC, but not even Saban could prevent the same fate that had plagued the Tide the previous two seasons.
After close losses to LSU and Mississippi State, the season hit rock bottom when Alabama fell to Louisiana Monroe at home, 21-14. They followed that up with their sixth consecutive loss to Auburn and finished 6-6 for the second year in a row.
“We just struggled,” junior Mike Johnson said. “Overall as a group, we just went downhill. We came out with a win in the bowl game, but we still couldn’t recover from those four losses. They really hurt us.”
A number of different circumstances correlated with the falling out at the end of last season. Primarily, the suspensions from the textbook incident and a variety of injuries left backups playing on a team with very little depth.
“We had issues on our team last year that contributed to it with guys getting suspended, injuries, losing players and not having a lot of depth, and then not doing the things we’re capable of doing in certain games,” Saban said.
The veteran players know how it has felt the last couple years to have a good season going, only to see everything fall apart in the final month.
“It’s been frustrating,” senior Rashad Johnson said. “Last year, we were having a great season. We were 6-2, and then dropped the last four games. For the guys who have been here, which is the majority of us, we know what type of ball club we have this year and the maturity we have to go into the last part of the season and continue to win.”
With a young team this year, the group of older players who have been through the recent ups and downs know the importance of keeping everybody focused and not reverting back to old ways.
“Some of the guys that have been here in the past need to step up and say hey we need to keep doing the things we’ve been doing to win,” Mike Johnson said.
“We have a lot of veteran guys in this group mixed in with some younger guys that’s made for a really talented football team. We just have to keep that theme going through this last little stretch here.”
If Alabama can find a way to knock off LSU on the road after this week’s game, it would be the first time the Tide has beaten the Tigers since 2002 when Saban was still coaching there.
If Alabama can win the Iron Bowl later in the season, it would be the first time since 2001 the Tide beat the Tigers and the first time Alabama has ever beaten Auburn in Tuscaloosa.
“We think we’ve got a better team and a lot more to prove and a lot more going for us,”quarterback John Parker Wilson said. “We’ve done a lot of things that we’ve never done before this season. We need to just keep it going, keep the momentum going.”
Before looking ahead too much, Alabama needs to concentrate on this weekend and take care of business against Arkansas State. Last year’s Louisiana Monroe loss was a perfect example of why you cannot take any team lightly.
“We’re going to go out and focus on Arkansas State and focus on what we’ve got to do to get better, so that we can correct the things that we did wrong last week,” Rashad Johnson said.
It’s that mindset that has set this year’s Alabama team apart from teams in the past. It’s that mentality that Saban has instilled in this year’s group of players, and the team is finally buying into it.
“The commitment to a standard of excellence, the perseverance and the hard work that you have to do is the key to being able to able to play at anytime during the season, but most importantly toward the end of the season when it’s very challenging to keep doing things they way you’ve always done them so you can continue to improve,” Saban said.
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