Alabama's Streak of Being an SEC Champion in Every Decade is No Big Deal

The first SEC Championship Game was in 1933 and the winner was Alabama. Since then the Crimson Tide have won an unprecedented 21 titles. That's eight more than second place Tennessee and over twice the number of fifth place Florida.

Sheer numbers are not the only thing that makes Alabama the all time king of the SEC; you would also have to factor in consistency. Alabama has won at least one SEC Championship for every decade since the first one.

However, Alabama's last SEC Championship was in 1999. Since that date Alabama went through the Dubose fizzle, the Franchione fiasco, girls gone wild with Mike Price, and the Mike Shula experiment.

Those were some of the craziest, probation filled, dark days that Alabama has ever had to endure. An SEC Championship, not to mention a shot at a National Championship would finally once and for all put a period on this dark decade.

That means to keep that streak in place, this is the year that Alabama must win the SEC.

This is certainly a good year for that to happen. Currently Alabama is locked into a meeting with Florida for a chance to win it all, but will this streak put extra pressure on the players?

Not according to the players.

As Mark Ingram told me, "We are all about winning every game. Whether it has more implications than just the win, it doesn't matter, no one win is more important than another. We play to win them all, so this streak will put no more pressure on us than any other game. The most important game is the next one."

"We just worry about getting better every week, doing our job, and taking advantage of the opportunities we have" he concluded.

And one of those opportunities is to keep that streak in effect.

Mike Johnson told me he wasn't even aware of that streak being on the line, but his comments echoed that of his team mate. That is not unusual. In interviewing players all season it has amazed me how this truly is one team, with one heartbeat as Coach Bryant used to strive for, but one mindset as well.

"We signed on at Alabama believing in this school and that we could bring this program back to the top" Johnson told me. "We believe we can win every game, and we know that to attain the goals we set for ourselves, every game is equally important. We'll worry about Florida when it Florida week and focus on next week's opponent this week. The most important game is always the next one."

So while the streak in important to the fans, it's just another game to the players. Sure it means something special, but to the players, it's just another game to get to winning them all.