Is History In The Making For This 2009 Crimson Tide Football Team?

On Sept. 15, 1992, Alabama won another game over Vanderbilt 25-8. and then one week later followed that up with a very lackluster game against Southern Miss, barely eeking out a 17-10 win.

Fans leaving that stadium had no idea that they had watched a chapter in history being made. In fact, many fans left grumbling that Alabama didn't look very sharp at all. They actually dropped from eighth place to ninth following that game.

The Tide picked it up a notch by beating Arkansas in the next game, 38-11. They regained the eighth place in the polls following that game and some thought maybe they had corrected all the problems.

But on an overcast Legion Field in Birmingham, the next game had few believing that this was a team that could win that 12th national championship. They played down to the level of their competition and won an ugly 13-0 game over a pitiful Louisiana Tech team.

They were expected to roll all over a down South Carolina team that year, and in the next game that's just what they did, 48-7. Whatever gear they couldn't get the offense into against Lousianna Tech, they managed to shift into for this game.

For the fans though, this was an up-and-down team. One great win followed by something not to spectacular. The first big test was coming up, a good Tennessee team, that might be able to settle some of the confusion.

But first there was a terrible Tulane team that they dispatched with relative ease as everyone thought they they both could and should do. That game's 37-0 score showed the offense could be counted on and the defense was growing stingier, with fewer points given up in each successive week.

Tennessee was one of the teams many thought could be a contender for an SEC Championship. It was supposed to be a game that would put the winner in the catbird's seat for a potential conference championship.

They won that Tennessee game in a battle royale, 17-10, and finally some of the fans started wondering if they were looking at not only a conference title contender, but a national one as well.

Tomorrow, the Tide plays a team many picked to win the SEC West. If they win that game, then many may come to see this team as not just a contender for a conference divisional title like last year, but as a national contender.

Tide fans should savor each game, because national championship years don't come around that often. Watch each game closely and file it away knowing you are witnessing history, if in fact Alabama pulls it off again this year.

You could be witnessing history in the making.

"When Nick Saban returned to college coaching (at Alabama), it was not a question of if he could win another national championship, but when," said previous championship coach Bob Stoops of Oklahoma.

And yes, it may seem conceited for outside teams to see Crimson Tide fans firm in their belief that one day, perhaps very soon, Nick Saban will hoist another crystal ball, but this time for Alabama.

"The coaches and players don't do it alone," Saban told me in an after-game press conference recently. "The fans are a big part of the team, too. Their energy and enthusiasm is felt by everyone of us on the field, and they help make a huge difference."

So let me take back what I said about witnessing history: You could be helping make history.

The hair on the back of my neck feels the same way it did in 1992, and it hasn't felt that way since now.