I will quote Nick Saban himself, introductory press conference, as closely as I can remember it: "We have an opponent across the state we will work 365 days a year to dominate."
Has that been done? No. It also invalidates the argument that Auburn should be treated as just another game. Or, I missed the statement where he singled out a team in Starkville, Miss., for the same treatment.
Since 2007, Alabama is 5-3 against an LSU team that has gone 72-20 with 8-5 being the worst record. In the same time frame, Alabama is 4-3 against an Auburn team that is 58-31, with two losing seasons, two more 8-5 seasons and an average record during this time of 7.8 wins and 4.2 losses. Is this dominating? If not, why make special mention of the need to do it upon arrival in Tuscaloosa?
As for the 3 BCS titles during this time, no one is downplaying that. But I will again refer to a Saban-ism: It's not what you did, it's what you're doing.
If you're uncomfortable with me pointing this numbers out, I can't help that. If the goal at Alabama is to keep winning championships, you've got to find a way to stop losing the 12th game of the regular season roughly every other year -- whether it comes against Auburn or whoever.
But don't portend to tell me that this is being overblown when the coach himself all but called out Auburn by name on day one on the job.
I just can't agree regarding the statement Saban made at his initial presser. You're talking about a single statement made six years ago -- which was probably written by someone else -- and which was made on literally his first day in Tuscaloosa. Even accepting that at face value (and I don't really see why we should given the circumstances), that statement nevertheless has to be counter-balanced by six (6) years of a course of conduct which has not placed any special attention on the Iron Bowl or Auburn in general, and has instead treated them as just another opponent. If anything, Saban himself has largely de-emphasized the traditional in-state tug-of-war between the two schools with his national recruiting strategy, and at this point the two schools are probably less interrelated than they have been at any point in modern history. While the Iron Bowl may still be the end-all, be-all for the fans who live in-state and who must co-exist with Auburn fans on a daily basis, on the greater program level I see absolutely nothing to indicate Saban has placed any special emphasis on them.
Now obviously we've had some pretty big choke-jobs against Auburn the past few years, although I do think it can be fairly argued that the 2010 loss really didn't matter at the end of the day (Auburn still makes Atlanta & Tempe and Newton still wins the Heisman even with a loss in that game). In total, though, we've won four of the last six, and while it is certainly frustrating, I don't think you can overlook the fact that Auburn has managed to pull out two nailbiter wins in the closing seconds, whereas three of our wins have been absolute dismembering blowouts (combined margin of victory 129-14). I have a hard time calling that a failure, and instead think it's mainly just some net bad luck on close games.
The bigger issue we have had is just generally poor play in the month of November the past four years. Since we went undefeated in 2009, we are something like a combined 36-1 in August, September, October, and December (only loss was to South Carolina in 2010), but in that same time period we have only gone 7-5 against BCS conference opponents in November, with two losses to LSU, two losses to Auburn, one loss to A&M, and a slew of ugly wins over poor-to-middling Mississippi State teams. It's kind of a different story every year, but the same general theme: We come out and play some ugly football in November and end up dropping a game or two that we should win, and in the end it costs us dearly. Obviously we've been very fortunate the past two years because we've been able to slip-up and lose in December and then have all the cards fall in our favor such that we can still reach the national championship game, but for obvious reasons that's not going to happen the overwhelming majority of the time, and so it came to pass this season. The current structure makes losing at any point a typically fatal error, but losing late is the ultimate no-no, and we've unfortunately developed a pretty nasty penchant for that as of the past four years.
Not sure if that's something we will improve on or not, but I will say that -- as much as I loathe it as a general proposition -- the institution of the four-team playoff next year will almost certainly help us in that regard. If we've got that system in place this year, the loss to Auburn would be meaningless in terms of the national championship race.
