Alabama's Tide Continues Their Rise and Believe in the Saban "System"

This season, a typical Alabama game has been: jump on your opponent early with smash-mouth tactics, build up a lead, and then hang on for dear life. Against Mississippi State on Saturday night in Tuscaloosa, the script went a little different.

In this game, it would be Mississippi State that would come out, smack us in the mouth right back and play us toe to toe. Both defenses were ruling the game, until a plucky little Bulldog QB named Tyson Lee split two defenders with a 31-yard run, capping a 78-yard drive drive to take an improbable 7-5 lead on Alabama.

It was a lead they would hold until State did the one thing their coach Sylvester Croom warned the team about and promised the press he would not do. That one thing was let Javier Arenas beat them. 

He had given specific instructions to kick outside the numbers, to kick out of bounds, to kick it anywhere he wasn't. But the best laid plans sometimes go bad, and sometimes your worst fears come true.

They did against the Bulldogs, because that is just what happened. Alabama's "little guy" with perhaps the biggest heart drove a dagger into State's game plan and returned two punts that all but put the game out of reach.

The first was a punt of the kind Croom wanted, so close to the sideline Arenas had to tiptoe like a ballerina to stay inbounds for the first few steps and then he was off. They finally caught him near the goal line, but 'Bama got an easy score and a 12-7 halftime lead.

In the locker room, at the half Croom was irate and said the only chance they had was to win a defensive battle and under NO conditions let Arenas handle another punt. 

However, early in the third quarter Bulldog punter Blake McAdams made a mistake. He punted one straight down to the field to a waiting Arenas, who this time did not fail to make them pay the ultimate price by returning it 80 yards for the TD.

The game was over at that point. Armed with a two-score lead and a defense that was gaining momentum, 'Bama never let the game be in doubt again. By the fourth quarter, the game was going as planned with the starters resting and the subs mopping up, en-route to a 32-7 win.

As someone who has not just watched, but studied the Crimson Tide this season there is one constant about this team and that constant is their team mentality. There is no one star. The live and die as one team.

When things aren't going right for the Tide, someone will take up the challenge and pick up not only the slack, but the team. Tonight, Arenas lifted the team on his shoulders and was the man to get things going. 

In other games, Roy Upchurch stepped up and was the man, and so has John Parker Wilson and Glen Coffee and so has Rashad Johnson and so on. This is not a team that believes in luck. They believe in each other, they believe in "The System."

Playing back the punt returns you notice men making key blocks without any way of them knowing where Arenas was. They just knew if they did their job, everybody else would do their's and something good would happen.

Saban once told a group of us Red Elephants, "It's the block you continue to make, when as far as you know, is away from the play, that wins the game. You didn't know the runner had to reverse his course and is now relying on your block to spring him, but because you play every down to the best of your ability and make every block like the game depended on it, that runner made the crucial first down that allowed you to win the game."

That is what happened last night. Nobody panicked, everybody continued to do their job and they knew if they did, that something good would happen. 

That is the mark of a Nick Saban team. The proof came because these are men who finally "bought into the system" and believe that. The result is an 11-0 season so far and a No. 1 ranking.