Hayes: Ranking Nick Saban's 10 best wins at Alabama
It’s easy to choose national championship wins. They’re always the most important.
But go deeper into the greatest wins ever for Nick Saban at Alabama, and there are big games everywhere you look. And many more that didn’t make the top 10 greatest wins for Saban at Alabama.
Like the last-minute win over LSU in 2012, when AJ McCarron delivered on a game-winning drive. Or the 2013 payback win at Texas A&M, when McCarron out dueled Johnny Manziel.
Or the overtime win at LSU in 2014, when Blake Sims finally won over the Alabama fan base. And crushing Georgia in 2015 — a big road win after an early home loss to Ole Miss looked like it scuttled the season.
Win after win, big game after big game. They all start to run together, especially when you win 206 times in 17 seasons.
But we’ve got the 10 best.
10. 2012: Alabama 42, Notre Dame 14
A great moment, a national championship moment. But more than anything, the official crowning of the inevitable.
Alabama was a double-digit favorite. Notre Dame didn’t have the talent to stay on the same field with the Tide, and was dealing with the off-field drama of star linebacker Manti Te’o.
Before Notre Dame could cross midfield, Alabama had a 21-0 lead early in the 2nd quarter. It was 35-0 midway through the 3rd quarter before Notre Dame scored.
By that time, Alabama was deep into celebrating its 2nd consecutive national title and undisputed title of college football dynasty with 3 national titles in 4 seasons.
Saban’s Alabama dynasty never looked so dominant.
9. 2023: Alabama 27, Auburn 24
They call it “The Gravedigger.”
A strange regular season — one that became Saban’s last in Tuscaloosa — finished with an Iron Bowl for the ages.
Bitter rival Auburn hired Hugh Freeze, in part, because he knew how to beat Saban (did it twice as coach of Ole Miss). The Tigers struggled for much of 2023, but played their best game of the season against Alabama.
Auburn took a 1-point lead late in the 3rd quarter, then added a field goal to go up 24-20 midway through the 4th. By the time Alabama reached the game-defining drive, the idea of Freeze finding a way to beat Saban again — and potentially ruin Alabama’s season — was becoming more real by the minute.
Then came an untenable 4th-and-31 play with 32 seconds to play. Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe’s perfectly thrown ball to Isaiah Bond in the left corner of the end zone beat the coverage for Alabama’s most improbable victory in the history of the Iron Bowl.
What a way to finish a storied rivalry run for Saban: a 12-5 record vs. Auburn, including wins in the last 4.
8. 2012: Alabama 32, Georgia 28
This essentially was the BCS National Championship Game. It was just being played in the SEC Championship Game.
Coach Mark Richt’s best team at Georgia against Saban’s defending national champions. Alabama came back from an 11-point deficit in the 3rd quarter to take the lead with 3 minutes to play on a touchdown pass from AJ McCarron to Amari Cooper.
The teams traded 3-and-outs before Georgia got the ball at its 15 with 1:08 to play. Aaron Murray drove Georgia to the Alabama 8 with 15 seconds to play and no timeouts.
But instead of clocking the ball and getting at least 2 shots at the end zone, Georgia decided to run a play. A pass to Chris Conley was tipped at the line of scrimmage and caught by Conley at the 5 while falling down.
He was touched down in bounds, and Georgia didn’t have time to line up and run another play.
A month later, Alabama won its 3rd national title under Saban by whipping Notre Dame.
7. 2020: Alabama 52, Florida 46
Another SEC title game that served as the de facto national title game in an awkward, pandemic-truncated season.
Moments after the back and forth, Saban admitted he defense “couldn’t stop those guys.” In fact, but for a fumbled Florida interception (that led to an Alabama TD), and a personal foul call on Florida on 3rd down (that led the completion of another TD drive), Alabama may not have won the SEC and its path in the Playoff might have been different — the final national title of Saban’s glorious career.
His greatest team, he proclaimed. Undefeated against a 100 percent SEC schedule in the regular season, and 2 big wins in the Playoff.
6. 2018: Alabama 35, Georgia 28
The return of Jalen.
He stood on the sidelines game after game, the good soldier doing what was asked. He lost his job to Tua Tagovailoa a year earlier in the national championship game, but Jalen Hurts wasn’t pouting.
Not once. Not ever.
So when the time game in the 2018 SEC Championship Game — nearly a full season after Hurts was benched on the biggest stage and Tagovailoa led a comeback for the national title — Hurts was more than ready when Tagovailoa left the game with an injured ankle.
Down 7, Hurts rallied Alabama in the 4th quarter, throwing a touchdown pass and running for another game-winning score in a Hollywood script of an ending.
After the game, Saban said, “I’ve probably never been more proud of a player than Jalen.”
Hurts transferred to Oklahoma after that season, but not before orchestrating one of the greatest wins in school history.
5. 2015: Alabama 45, Clemson 40
There was a moment in the high-scoring Playoff National Championship Game where — after everything we’d seen in nearly a decade of Saban at Alabama — everything we thought we knew about Saban — changed.
The guy who never gambles — preparation and talent beat gambling every time — did the unthinkable.
The moment: Tie game, 24-24, 10:34 remaining in the 4th quarter. Alabama had just kicked a field goal to pull even with a dangerous Clemson offense that Saban admitted the Tide couldn’t stop. So Saban tried an onside kick to steal a possession.
Not just any onside kick, a perfectly-executed onside kick caught by Alabama defensive back Marlon Humphrey. Two plays later, Jake Coker hit OJ Howard with a 51-yard touchdown pass and Alabama never relinquished the lead.
The Tide hadn’t won the national title since 2012, and the invincibility of the program had worn thin with the Kick-6 loss in 2013 and the loss to Ohio State in the 2014 Playoff.
The how do you like me now moment of the onside kick brought it all back to center.
4. 2011: Alabama 21, LSU 0
The Redeaux on the Bayou.
Here’s the setup: Alabama followed the 2009 national title season with its most underachieving season under Saban. His most talented team in 2010 (Julio Jones, Mark Ingram, etc.,) finished with 3 losses.
So when LSU went into Tuscaloosa in 2011 and won a heavyweight title fistfight of a game — 9-6 in overtime — it seemed like all was lost again. Until Oklahoma State’s loss at Iowa State paved the way for Alabama’s return to the BCS National Championship Game against LSU.
The 2nd chance ended any hope for LSU, a motivated and polished Alabama dominating a national championship game that was impetus for change in the college football postseason. The idea of 2 teams from the same conference playing in the national championship game — the Southern Super Bowl — rubbed too many the wrong way.
It eventually led to the formation of the College Football Playoff.
3. 2009: Alabama 37, Texas 21
The first national title at Alabama since 1992, and the culmination of a brief process that began with Saban declaring he wasn’t leaving the NFL’s Dolphins, and wasn’t interested in the job — and winning it all 3 short years later.
Texas lost starting quarterback Colt McCoy on the first series of the game — then-Texas coach Mack Brown to this day says the Longhorns would’ve won the game with a healthy McCoy — and Alabama made play after play on both sides of the ball to begin the greatest dynasty in college football history.
2. 2009: Alabama 32, Florida 13
Cry, Timmy, cry.
The game that started it all. Those 12 months of remembering what it felt like to walk off the Georgia Dome turf in Atlanta after a brutal loss to Florida in the SEC Championship Game — and then doing something about it.
The Alabama defense locked down Florida’s offense, and never gave Gators quarterback Tim Tebow an opportunity to work his big game magic. The Tide punished Florida on the lines of scrimmage, a physical whipping the likes of which the Gators hadn’t seen in an historic run under coach Urban Meyer.
Alabama had finally ascended to the top of the SEC, and a month later, would take the final step by winning the national title. This game, this moment in the 17-year history of Saban at Alabama, is the most important game of all.
It started the unprecedented run. It fueled the dynasty.
1. 2017: Alabama 26, Georgia 23 (OT)
Of all the important coaching moves and all the success in 17 seasons, no move was bigger — or more daring — than what Saban decided at halftime of the Playoff National Championship Game.
The offense was struggling and Alabama was down 13-0, and Saban decided to replace starting quarterback Jalen Hurts with freshman Tua Tagovailoa — who had played sparingly as a backup over the entire season.
Tagovailoa provided a spark, the offense got rolling and the defense started clamping down on Georgia. A late touchdown pass to Calvin Ridley tied the game at 20, and a missed field goal by Alabama sent the game into overtime.
Georgia kicked a field goal, and Alabama began its series with Tagovailoa sacked for a 16-yard loss. It led to maybe the greatest play in Alabama history: 2nd-and-26.
Tagovailoa to DeVonta Smith, touchdown. National title.
Legendary, just like Saban.