Nick Saban owns Kirby Smart again with some of his best coaching yet

Alabama

Alabama head coach Nick Saban and Alabama quarterback Bryce Young celebrate the teams win after the Southeastern Conference championship NCAA college football game between Georgia and Alabama, Saturday, Dec. 4, 2021, in Atlanta. Alabama won 41-24. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)AP

There Nick Saban was on another podium getting handed another trophy after another SEC championship. Same as it ever was.

Except for this team and this season it wasn’t, even if the results were the same. The journey to returning to that triumphant moment was rife with inconsistent play and questions about whether this Alabama was even that good. A year after one of the most impressive seasons in college football history, this Alabama team white-knuckled its way through its SEC schedule, finding ways to win all but one game but rarely looking good doing so.

Until Saturday night when No. 3 Alabama crushed No. 1 Georgia, 41-24, to book its ticket to the College Football Playoff and prolong the Bulldogs’ long-running nightmares from playing the Tide in Mercedes-Benz Stadium. This was supposed to be when Kirby Smart finally beat his mentor and exorcised the pain that came from blowing leads in the 2017 national championship and 2018 SEC Championship to Alabama. Instead, there are more questions than ever about whether Smart can beat Saban. They include whether Smart knows what he’s doing at the quarterback position as Stetson Bennett’s limitations, plus some poor decision-making on a redzone interception and pick-six, crushed the Bulldogs.

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In an oft-repeated fact in the lead up to the SEC Championship, it was the first time in 92 games Alabama wasn’t the betting favorite. It had been more than six years since Las Vegas oddsmakers thought another team was better than Alabama – coincidentally, the last time was also against Georgia and had a similar result – and it just happened to be in the most important game of the year. Georgia was a 6.5-point favorite and a popular media pick to win the game convincingly. It was hard to blame anyone for picking against Alabama after it struggled through a four-overtime win a week earlier against Auburn.

But a counted-out Alabama team is a most dangerous Alabama team. Everyone picking against the Tide provided a rare extrinsic motivation for an Alabama program used to searching far and wide to find bulletin board material. This week Saban had all the ammunition he needed to get this Alabama team to flip the switch and finally turn into a killer.

“You guys gave us a lot of really positive rat poison,” Saban said to the assembled media in his postgame press conference. “The rat poison that you usually give us is usually fatal, but the rat poison that you put out there this week was yummy.”

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It is rare to have your best game across the board in your most important game, but that’s what Alabama accomplished against Georgia. Bryce Young was terrific, slicing and dicing the nation’s best defense for 461 total yards and four touchdowns in what should assuredly make him the next Heisman Trophy winner. Young to Jameson Williams might be the most potent combo in the country as the two hooked up for two long touchdowns, one of which came at a critical juncture early in the game with Alabama down 10-0.

The much-maligned offensive line that gave up seven sacks a week ago against Auburn had its best collective performance of the season, stymying Georgia’s front-seven at every turn. You could say the same for offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien, who called a brilliant game against the Bulldogs after plenty of fans hoped to foist him on another program looking for a new head coach. Alabama exposed Georgia’s defense in a way that no one had, and frankly, no one expected it to be this season.

After the game, a relaxed Saban credited the resiliency of this 2021 Alabama team for what we all saw Saturday night. He referenced the Tide’s October loss to Texas A&M and how losing a game can teach a team humility and a greater respect for winning.

“That’s why I think from the Texas A&M game on, we’ve been able to grow as a team,” Saban said. “We haven’t always been the most consistent, but at times when we played well like we’re capable of playing, we’ve been very, very good, and we’re just trying to get that on a little more consistent basis. I think the players understand that.

“...You can coach guys, but they don’t have to take coaching, and these guys have all done a marvelous job, in my opinion, of doing what the coaches ask them to do, trusting and believing in the system, trusting and believing in each other. And I think that’s probably where we’ve made some of the greatest strides in becoming a team.”

Saban deserves a lot of credit for getting this oft-questioned team peaking at the right time. He seemed to be baffled at times this season about what to do with this team, questioning their leadership and practice habits. But he evolved his approach, sensing that they needed to be built up more than taken down. He defended them publicly more than usual, from fiery radio rants about “self-absorbed fans” to looking for the good in close wins more than the negatives. Saban didn’t have as many player leaders he could count on like last year, so he had to hold the team’s hand a little more and find ways to raise their spirits.

Now he has Alabama two wins away from another national championship, one that could be the most unlikely of his Alabama tenure. In a chaotic season that saw preseason favorites Clemson, Oklahoma and Ohio State all go down with multiple losses to miss the playoffs, Saban has one of his most confounding teams back into the playoffs somehow as the new favorite to win it all.

If Saban can add another big trophy in January, it could be his most impressive coaching season yet.

John Talty is the sports editor and SEC Insider for Alabama Media Group. You can follow him on Twitter @JTalty.

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