So I’m like two-plus weeks late on this, I know, but I’d still like to take the time to thank Sports Illustrated for this:
Yes, that’s right, thank them. I love this cover. I know that puts me in the kind of minority amongst Auburn fans usually reserved for African-Americans in the NHL, and not without reason: the media slurpage of all things crimson has, truly, gotten well out of hand. I know that. This tweet from Jeremy says it all.
But I was thrilled when this cover came out anyway, and I’m thrilled now. For several reasons:
— Dude, even SI knows slapping the word “DYNASTY” over the top of a team that’s won one (one) championship is patently ridiculous, a moonshot so over-the-top mid-90s Jim Carrey thinks they should tone it down. They asked themselves how far they could go to send the Tiders into a maximum cash-spending tizzy without losing their journalistic credibility … and then said “Ah, screw it, we need the money,” and went one step further. To me, it’s self-parody. And it’s funny.
— The odds are overwhelming that it’s going to get even funnier. Since ‘Bama’s back-to-back titles in ’78 and ’79, you know how many teams have managed to repeat as even split national titlists? Two: Nebraska in the mid-90s and USC in 2003-2004. That’s 2/30. A 6.67 percent chance. Think, too, about all the potential juggernauts that have fallen short of that standard: ’02 Miami, ’05 USC, ’09 Florida … and that’s just this past decade. Does a Tide team that has to replace far more than any of those teams really strike you as the kind that can just roll through a third straight undefeated regular season?
Sure, there’s a chance this SI cover is going to look prescient in another 12 months. Chances are much, much better that after those 12 months we end up inducting it into the OMGBAMALOLZ Hall of Fame alongside this classic:
“Can anyone stop Alabama?” Oh, someone can, we just don’t know who. And when we find out, we’ll be sure to let SI know. I already can’t wait.
— Best of all: a cover like this actively makes it less likely ‘Bama repeats. Not singlehandedly, much, but the more and more ‘Bama hears that they’re unbeatable, that the 2010 season is a formality, that their goals aren’t the already-lofty “SEC West title” or “league championship” but a national DYNASTY, the more likely it becomes they fall from that perch. Hype makes fools of us all, and even ‘Bama isn’t invulnerable. We’ve still got an entire spring and summer of said hype to build, too, and to have it start at this kind of fever pitch the instant the previous season was over … well, what more could an Auburn fan ask for?
I’m telling you: there was some good to come out of the Tide’s win in Pasasdena, and I’ll bet dollars-to-doughnuts this cover winds up as a shining example of that good.
I agree, of course Bama (and their “dynasty”) can be stopped next year. And yes, these covers are always a jinx. However, one area we have to give them credit in (though as an Auburn grad it pains me to say this) is Saban not allowing his team and administration- from waterboy to the top booster buddies- to buy into the hype. He’s an annoying broken record, but he’s right. He doesn’t allow his players to ever look ahead and they were well prepared in each game. Always.
The “dynasty” will lose a game or two next year but not because of lack of preparation. Saban is one of the greats in having everyone gathered around the same campfire. But they will lose because of losses of key players in key positions.
If UAT was “prepared” for Auburn in the IB, it certainly did not show!!
“Shit storm”, I believe, are the words Saban used to describe the Auburn game execution.
Easyed’s right: don’t believe the hype. Maybe Saban’s got a better track record than most, but he’s still lost games to the likes of UAB and UL-Monroe, lost a bowl game to Utah in which his team looked badly outcoached, needed a couple of special teams plays to beat Tulane, etc. And yeah, then there’s this year’s Iron Bowl, when the Tide came off of a virtual bye week and looked totally lost against the exact same Zachery reverse Auburn had run since last year’s spring game. He’s good, sure, but even he can’t keep his team from reading their press clippings.
The Bengals are 4-0.
I can’t seem to shake the thought that Saban and alabama were made for each other.
Before leaving LSU for Miami, Saban had 1 NC, 2 SECC, 2 ten-win season, and ZERO undefeated seasons. Extremely impressive, but IMO not worthy of the hype he had received. Certainly not worth $4 Mil a year – nearly double that of Stoops and Carroll at the time.
Before Saban arrived, bama had been on one of the worst stretches in recent memory.
But the bammers were always prone to over-hype the next coach and players. Dubose had “learned from the bear”, Franchone had them all “holding the rope”, Price had taken Washington State to a rose bowl, and Shula was “a bear cub” and former QB with NFL coaching experience come home to lead the tide.
Watts, Croyle, and Wilson were each said to be the next Snake or Namath.
But the hype was always just that and nothing more.
Then Saban came to Tuscaloosa and the hype machine started spinning so fast it looked like a windmill in a tornado. Wasted middle aged women kissed him at the airport. He was this close > < to having to decline signing a man boob.
Somehow in this situation, though, the whole is more than the sum of its parts; Because where previously the hype had put undo expectations of owning the SEC and even D1A on mere mortal coaches and players, for once it was it was helping!
Maybe the blind faith shown by bama fans for [insert current coach name here] combined with THIS LAST coach actually being competent and seemingly oblivious to external pressures helped 4 & 5 star players sign with alabama.
The instant national media buy-in helped too. I remember Herbstreit predicting a bama NC in either year 3 or 4 of the Saban administration. I'll bet Julio Jones and Mark Ingram remember it too.
At the time I didn't understand. Saban had a good/not great record in college and was a failure in the NFL. Bama was clearly a has-been with their real glory days coming when current recruits parents were in grammar school. Even their last NC in 1992 was when Saban's first recruiting class was two. TWO! And CTT had been whipping bama since these kids were in the sixth grade. I am 31 and I personally do not recall a time when I regarded Alabama as a national power. That was all before I was born.
Still I am at a loss. Jerry, I hope you're right. Although I am very optimistic about the direction Chiz has our program going, I am have to touch on what Jonathan said above: Saban seems incapable of allowing his players to buy into the hype. They are READY and in a bad mood every game regardless of what their fans say about cake walks and easy wins. He seems to have armored over bama's Achilles heel and it will take great teams to beat them for the foreseeable future.
Or maybe I am just a pessimist.
WDE!
My brush with SI Dynasty proclamations goes back to the 1980 cover with “Atlanta Falcons: the Next Dynasty”? splashed across the cover. How’d that work out?
JB
Daniel Moore needs to hurry up and finish Cody-Blocking-His-Second-Field-Goal-Preserving-The-Win-Over-Unranked-Tennessee so he can get working on his new “Dynasty” painting of the SI cover.
Nabas is a very good coarch, but can be had….
He cannot control all the Bama students, friends and family
telling the Bama team how great they are and it must kill Nabas.
Tubs had a good record vs. him at LSU and Bama. I may
be drinking the Orange and Blue Koolaid, but the current team
and staff have all the tools to beat Nabas just like Tubs did.
This is not the 1970’s,back to the past, it is here and now.
Yeah comparing an SI cover that was predicting UA is back to national relevance….to an SI cover that is celebrating a teams NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP 14-0 season….1st HEISMAN TROPHY…2nd UNDEFEATED REGULAR SEASON IN THE SEC….2 BACK TO BACK #1 RECRUITING CLASSES…..I would say while “bama is back” may have been a stretch and a tad premature….DYNASTY although premature is no stretch by any means…..its just a scary thought for the AUBBIES to swallow! FEAR THE DYNASTY!
most sane Bama fans hate the dynasty label
why couldn’t they just call us what we were, the best team of 2009?
but you got a point about selling to Bama fans and blah blah blah
its a good problem to have though