Alabama's Return to SEC Title Game Nothing Short of Impressive

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — These days the University of Alabama football program measures success with rings.

Three, of course, is the magic number as that corresponds to winning both a national and Southeastern Conference title. But the first one, conquering the West Division, is also important and shouldn’t be overlooked.

“Finish. That’s our motto,” senior linebacker Reggie Ragland said on Monday, two days after Alabama won the West with a 29-13 victory at Auburn.

“That’s all we talk about. We’ve got a week left, really, of SEC play and we just have to keep working hard. We work hard and we do what we have to do to prepare the right way, we’ll be where we want to be.”

Hearing a player say something like that is pretty much cliche, but with this group, one has to believe that’s actually what it's doing. It stems from players like Ragland coming back for his senior year, a defensive front seven that has so many contributors that Florida head coach Jim McElwain halfway joked that it should be called a “front 30,” and Derrick Henry.

1996	Florida
1997	Tennessee
1998	Tenessee
1999	Alabama
2000	Florida
2001	LSU
2002	Georgia
2003	LSU
2004	Auburn
2005	Georgia
2006	Florida
2007	LSU
2008	Florida
2009	Alabama
2010	Auburn
2011	LSU
2012	Alabama
2013	Auburn
2014	Alabama

You don’t see too many running backs taking the ball 46 times against a defense like Auburn’s and saying they're ready for more or one deflecting every question about the Heisman Trophy even though he’s the clear front-runner.

"I'm not ready to focus on New York,” Henry said. “I'm looking forward on going to Atlanta and playing Florida and preparing for this week and preparing for the Gators because they are a tough team."

That’s the kind of thing that could be key for the No. 2 Crimson Tide (11-1, 7-1 SEC), both this week and the upcoming month, when awards are handed out, coaches are hired away and it can be easy for players to start thinking about the draft.

It’s when rings can prove to be especially elusive, as last year’s Crimson Tide learned.

“I always ask the players—I asked them last year because of the Ole Miss game, I asked them this year because of the Ole Miss game—‘How are you going to respond to the loss?’ It’s a really true test to your character as a man as how you respond when things don’t go well," head coach Nick Saban said.

“Everyone can be a front-runner and everyone can respond the right way when things are going your way. But now you have to realize that there’s some tough things that you’re going to have to do to overcome the adversity that you’ve created by the way we’ve played. Are you going to be willing to do that?”

This team has. The players held a team meeting after the 43-37 Ole Miss loss on Sept. 19, which turned out to be the turning point of the season—just like last year—and won nine straight games since to finish along atop the division.

That’s an impressive accomplishment by itself and shouldn’t be overlooked.

So is the fact that since 2008, Alabama has only lost two straight games only twice, and in both cases it was the same circumstance: a deflating late-season defeat followed by a bowl game in which it didn’t have anything to play for.

In 2008 it was Florida in the SEC Championship Game and then Utah in the Sugar Bowl. Alabama rebounded by winning the 2009 national championship.

In 2013 it was Auburn and Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl, but it lost to Ohio State in the subsequent playoff semifinals, 42-35.

“I think the consistency of what he's done year in and year out, it's hard to do in college football,” said McElwain, who was Saban's offensive coordinator from 2008-11. “The way he has gotten these players to understand, look, that game's over, learn from it, but let's move on forward and get a little bit better. That's one thing you see is they continually get better year in and year out.

“You know what, it was fun to be a part of to see how he does that.”

Butch Dill/Associated Press

It’s easy to proclaim that Alabama’s schedule this season hasn’t held up because the other contenders fell by the wayside, but in realty it does.

Alabama has six wins against Power Five teams that are 8-4 or better. It played at Georgia when it had Nick Chubb, and it stonewalled the player everyone thought was going to run away with the Heisman Trophy, Leonard Fournette.

It topped the quarterback who finished eighth in Heisman Trophy voting last season (Dak Prescott) and was a finalist for Maxwell, Davey O'Brien, Johnny Unitas Golden Arm and Manning awards. It beat the two other teams that went undefeated in November, Arkansas and Tennessee from the SEC East.

The thing about playing in the toughest division in college football is that whenever they face each other, one team has to lose. It’s an automatic 21 losses for a division that’s only lost 26 total games this season.

Overall, SEC West teams are 24-3 against nonconference opponents.

Consequently, every team in the West will be playing in a bowl game again this season, the second time that’s ever happened, with last year being the first. The pecking order is as it should be for bowls: Alabama with a shot to play for the national championship, Ole Miss heading to a top-notch destination and most of the rest playing Dec. 30 or later.

In 2012, Steve Spurrier half-joked at SEC media days that winning the conference was tougher than capturing the national championship, but there was an element of truth to the statement. The conference hasn’t had a repeat champion since Tennessee in 1997-98, and Alabama is just the second program to repeat in the West since 1993-94.

We can all speculate how other teams would have fared playing in the SEC West this season and how the playoffs might eventually turn out, but so far Alabama winning the division is the most impressive feat in college football this season.

Now it’ll try to top that by winning another ring, if not two.   

Quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

Christopher Walsh is a lead SEC college football writer. Follow Christopher on Twitter @WritingWalsh.