It can be hard to know when a college football dynasty is over. It can be harder still to know when a dynasty is not only over, but the program that once laid claim to one is simply no longer very good anymore.
I was sitting in the north end zone at Bryant-Denny Stadium on Sept. 22, 2001, watching Alabama play its first SEC home game that year against Houston Nutt’s Arkansas Razorbacks. It was the first week that fans across America were walking back into college football stadiums in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
Alabama beat Arkansas, 31-10. Various weather forecasts from that day say the high was 88 degrees. In the baking sun of that north end zone, it felt closer to 108.
Sometime before kickoff, one thing happened that I’ve never quite forgotten. It involved a huge roar from the crowd as public address announcer Tony Giles announced a top 25 scoreboard update. In Chapel Hill, he told the 83,818 at Bryant-Denny, the North Carolina Tar Heels had just taken a 41-9 lead over No. 6 Florida State.
My brother and I looked at each other and declared, like pretty much everyone else that day, that FSU’s dynasty was over. Florida State would still have good teams, but the mighty Seminoles’ days of playing for national championships — as they’d done for three straight years from 1998-2000 and five times overall since the 90s — were over.
Flash forward 24 years later, and it was the same Florida State football program that once again reminded the college football world, as if it needed another reminder, that Alabama’s dynasty was over.
To be clear, Alabama’s dynasty has been over for a while, although I’m not entirely sure when the exact moment occurred. It’s possible that it was in 2022 when Alabama lost twice in three games, including to Tennessee for the first time in 16 seasons under Nick Saban, and then in overtime at LSU.
Or perhaps it was in the immediate aftermath of Alabama’s Rose Bowl loss to Michigan on New Year’s Day 2024 in what turned out to be Saban’s final game as coach.
After Alabama’s ugly 31-17 loss at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee on Saturday, the most recent in a string of ugly defeats for the Crimson Tide of late, I’m left wondering something else altogether: is Alabama still in the category of “very good” teams? They sure haven’t been playing like it.
The Crimson Tide have now lost three of their last four games dating back to last year’s 24-3 blowout at Oklahoma. Everyone hoping that Alabama’s struggles and inconsistencies in Year 1 under new coach Kalen DeBoer would be left in the rearview mirror of 2024 were in for a rude awakening after Florida State 31, Alabama 17.
Alabama still looks too inconsistent, too undisciplined, and too confused. On the latter part, so does DeBoer.
The Tide had eight penalties totaling 70 yards on Saturday, including a 15-yard personal foul on defensive lineman James Smith at the end of a tackle on Florida State quarterback Tommy Castellanos. The drive ended with a decisive Seminoles touchdown for the game’s final score with 7:17 to play.
Earlier in that drive, former Alabama tailback Roydell Williams picked up a first down with plenty of room to spare on a critical fourth-down attempt when FSU coach Mike Norvell went for it from his own 34-yard line after the Tide had climbed back into the game and trailed 24-17.
Alabama’s running game, once upon a time its bread and butter on offense, finished with just 87 yards on the ground. By contrast, the Crimson Tide defense surrendered 236 rushing yards. They sacked Castellanos only once and had just three tackles for loss.
Quarterback Ty Simpson hardly torched Florida State’s defense in his first start for Alabama. He completed 23 of 43 passes for 254 yards and two touchdowns, an average of 5.9 yards per throw. Alabama’s offensive line gave up three sacks and simply didn’t block very well.
And FSU’s Castellanos? So much for the “disrespect will be addressed” talk coming from Alabama’s defense. The Boston College transfer, who committed the once-cardinal sin for an opponent by trash talking the Crimson Tide ahead of a matchup, had said that Alabama no longer had Nick Saban around to save them. He was right.
He rushed 16 times for 78 yards and a touchdown while averaging 11 yards per completion against Alabama’a defense. Castellanos, armed with Alabama’s old nemesis Gus Malzahn as his offensive coordinator, led a Florida State attack that amassed 388 yards of total offense.
In the aftermath of Florida State’s victory, words like “stunning” and “shocking” have been used to describe Alabama’s latest loss under DeBoer. But there really isn’t a whole lot terribly shocking about it once you remove Florida State’s dismal 2-10 record from a season ago. Not if you’ve been paying attention to Alabama games of late.
It was a sight that has become all too familiar for Alabama teams under DeBoer, whose losses include: a 40-35 stunner at Vanderbilt (a first in 40 years), a 24-17 defeat at Tennessee, the aforementioned 24-3 debacle at Oklahoma, a dreadful showing against a Michigan team that on paper looked to be down to its JV squad after so many Wolverines players opted out of last year’s bowl game in Tampa, and now Florida State.
One game does not a season make. Under the 12-team College Football Playoff model especially, I suspect a Week 1 loss for some teams will mean about as much as the Eagles or Chiefs dropping a season opener to the Raiders. Week 1 results in college football are always filled with overreactions, and I hope mine turn out to be just that.
Alabama could self-correct, getting the last laugh on its critics with Saturday’s loss a mere blip on the radar in the grand scheme of things. If so, sign me up.
In the meantime, though, Alabama’s problems — its inconsistency, its lack of discipline, its frequent deer-in-the-headlights looks, and its overall struggles against teams that, on paper at least, simply don’t measure up to the talent the Crimson Tide have — seem to run much deeper than that.
And after Florida State’s 31-17 trouncing of the Tide, I find myself asking a question I haven’t had to pose in a very long time: is Alabama even in the category of “very good” still? Time will soon tell.
