All Alabama needed was last September’s opening kickoff.
The Crimson Tide created pleasant memory after pleasant memory last football season in racking up a 13-0 record that culminated with a 52-24 trampling of Ohio State for the national championship. Alabama’s 10 regular-season wins at the expense of Southeastern Conference foes established a record that may never be topped, given the scheduling adjustment that transpired due to the coronavirus outbreak, which required countless testing and numerous protocols.
Want the smile to disappear from the face of senior defensive end Phidarian Mathis? Ask him to recount those late, late summer weeks leading up to the 38-19 win at Missouri.
“Going into the season and not knowing if we were going to play or not was really tough,” Mathis said last week at SEC Media Days in Hoover, Alabama. “We were making all those sacrifices and practicing not knowing if we were going to play. We were always on Zoom, and people started getting frustrated. I know a lot of teams got frustrated, but we wound up handling it really well.
“We didn’t cry. We wanted to play, which is why things happened the way they happened last year.”