Alabama Football: Saban's Prediction Comes True for Alabama

Larry Burton (Syndicated Writer) A few years ago I was interviewing Alabama defensive back Marquis Johnson and he told me an interesting story about the first bowl game they went to with Nick Saban as head coach of the Crimson Tide.

He said it was a cold, rainy day, just generally dreary, when the bus pulled up to the stadium in Shreveport, Louisiana for the Independence Bowl. This was the Tide's second straight trip to this bowl and it's generally known as the SEC's bottom bowl.

They had finished Saban's first regular season at 6-6 and there just wasn't a lot of excitement on the team that year. They had people on the team that just didn't buy in to Saban's process and the team just didn't ever get together. Those people left the program after that year.

No one was really excited to be in Shreveport again—least of all Nick Saban, who when the busses stopped, said, "I hope you soak all this in, because while I'm head coach of Alabama, we're never coming back here again!"

That's not meant to be a knock on the fine folks at the Independence Bowl by any means, I'm sure. That was just Saban's way of telling his team that they'll never have to be in this spot of accepting a bowl like that again. That they'd never have to limp into bowl season hoping for just any bowl game again.

Not under his watch anyway.

Johnson said Saban told them, "The future starts today. This is the day you decide to be winners or losers, to go forward or to stay in this rut."

Those words seemed to pick everyone up and get the juices flowing. They won that game against a pretty good Colorado team, 30-24, and true to Saban's prediction, promise, vow or whatever you want to call it, they've never looked back.

This year they're playing in their second BCS National Championship Game in three years. The other two bowls they've been to since then have been the Sugar Bowl, where they lost a very memorable game to Utah and the Capital One Bowl Game in Orlando where they simply destroyed Michigan State.

The future looks bright for Saban next year too and apparently, at least for the foreseeable future, Saban seems to be in a position to make his prediction a reality.