Alabama has won six college football national championships during the Nick Saban era via multiple routes.
His first title with the Crimson Tide during the 2009 season and last year’s crown transpired with undefeated records, one without a global pandemic and the other amid one. Alabama won the 2011 championship over LSU after losing at home to the Tigers during the regular season, while Saban’s 2017 team claimed a national title without winning its conference, division or even its state after rebounding from a loss at Auburn.
Saban’s latest challenge is having to beat Georgia twice within 40 days and replicate or somehow improve on the outcome of the Southeastern Conference championship that the Crimson Tide won going away 41-24.
“I think it sort of speaks to itself in terms of we’re obviously going to evaluate how we did in the last game, and they’re going to evaluate how they did in the last game,” Saban said Monday afternoon on a Zoom call. “They’re going to try and take advantage of things that we did, and we’re going to try to take advantage of things and correct things that we didn’t do well. In that, there are some subtle changes that you need to make so that you put your players in the best chance to be successful.
“You’re always going to see something new and different, so players are always going to have to adapt in a game. I don’t think you do everything the same, but I also don’t think you can make a lot of changes that players won’t be able to go out and execute with confidence.”