Dear college football,

You had your chance. For weeks and weeks of the 2023 season, you had your chance. Game upon game, the opportunity was there to bury Alabama’s season — to make irrelevant a storied program that took longer than usual to find its legs, a program searching, sometimes desperately, for an identity.

It was a collection of uber-talented athletes that hadn’t yet jelled into a team worthy of calling Bryant-Denny Stadium its home, especially after a double-digit loss on that hallowed turf to an ascending Texas team just champing at the bit to join the Tide next season in America’s best conference.

But, college football, you couldn’t capitalize on the Longhorns’ success. Yes, college football, you had your chance to prove right the talking heads who professed the end of the dynasty. You had your chance to affirm the decree of Alabama’s decline, the end of the reign for head coach Nick Saban. College football, you had your chance to kick the Tide when it was down.

Those days are behind them. Alabama is no longer wobbly-legged, no longer struggling to stay on its feet like a newborn fawn. No longer questioning its own ability. That was then, this is now.

No, this team has grown up. And with each passing week, it continues to get better by leaps and bounds.

In fact, this team has grown into a monster, and its growth only seems to get larger and larger as the season moves on. Its development has been nurtured by an unrelenting defense that held the fort while its offense eventually came around.

It was a process that may have taken its time to come together. But it has since been accelerated by the play of a quarterback who has become comfortable with his attributes and an offensive scheme to match.

Jalen Milroe was perhaps the final piece of this puzzle — the most important piece. Milroe plodded along until the game slowed down for him and the light bulb went on. And now that he has found his fit, the pieces have blended together to form a clear and concise picture.

The Alabama offense is now catching up to its defense relative to its domination of opponents, and that’s bad news for the rest of the country. Milroe has become elusive. He continues to improve his decision-making, extending plays and using his running ability to open up the passing game.

He’s adding a vital dimension to the Alabama offense that is making it almost unstoppable. You couple that with an already elite defense, and what you end up with is a complete football team that will challenge all opposition as the 2023 season comes to a climax.

The Tide punched its ticket to Atlanta on Saturday with a 49-21 victory at Kentucky, and it will head to the SEC Championship Game with an excellent chance of advancing beyond that. A 1-loss SEC champion would certainly put itself in a position to continue on to the College Football Playoff.

Granted, the Tide still has a cupcake and an Iron Bowl to navigate past. But this team, once rubbery-legged and wobbly, is now standing firm and tall. You could even say it’s on a mission.

No, it isn’t perfect, and Milroe still has some things to clean up. But this is a formidable team that has weathered the early September storms. Seasoned by those initial bumps in the road, the Tide are now prepared to take on whatever the college football world can throw at it, a college football world that had its chance to take it down early. Now, it won’t be so easy.