TIDE, TAKE THREE
1. Despite losing the last two meetings, Alabama holds a 47-11-2 series edge over Ole Miss.2. Alabama is 12-for-12 on extra-point attempts this season, while its opponents are 1-for-1.3. The Crimson Tide likely will play before the largest crowd in Magnolia State history, with the current mark of 64,232 set just last week when Ole Miss hosted Wofford at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
Playing the Ole Miss Rebels always reminds Alabama football coach Nick Saban just how much things have changed since he got into the profession.
“I’ve coached for a long time, and the first thing you did the first day of camp and the first day of installation was that you taught the players how to get in a huddle,” Saban said Monday in his weekly news conference. “That’s like gone with the Edsel. What defensive players have to practice with now in terms of pace of play is completely different.”
Spreading the field and speeding the tempo were adjustments for Saban before Hugh Freeze became the Ole Miss coach in 2012, with current Auburn coach Gus Malzahn having served as the offensive coordinator for the Tigers from 2009 to 2011. Malzahn returned to Auburn as head coach in 2013 and guided the Tigers that November to an upset of Saban’s top-ranked Crimson Tide, and Freeze’s Rebels have upset Alabama each of the past two years heading into Saturday afternoon’s showdown inside Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
There was even the unofficial tag-team partnership of Freeze and Malzahn against the old-school duo of Saban and Arkansas coach Bret Bielema a couple of years ago when debates broke out regarding safety concerns with fast-paced offenses, but Saban knew he had to evolve.