Alabama football: 10 things we’ll remember from Tide’s perfect regular season

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama football finished the regular season undefeated for the fourth time during the Nick Saban era.

The Crimson Tide capped things off with a 52-21 beating of Auburn on Saturday inside Bryant-Denny Stadium, giving Bama revenge from the loss at Auburn last season.

Alabama faces Georgia in the SEC Championship Game next Saturday. Before that, let’s take a look back.

Here are 10 things we’ll remember from this season.

1. Iron Bowl revenge

Alabama waited all year for this one. After Auburn ruined their chance at a perfect regular season for the second time under Saban, the Crimson Tide got its revenge with a beatdown of the Tigers in the Iron Bowl. Auburn put up a bit of a fight, but Alabama’s offense was too much in the second half. The players and coaches will tell you that it was just another game. Don’t believe them. This one meant way more.

2. The absurdity of this offense

Alabama scored 50 or more points in eight of its 12 games this regular season. That’s wild. This offense was performing at an extremely high level and few opponents kept up. Alabama went over 60 points twice. There’s just no way around it: This is the best offense in Alabama history. Alabama set a school record for point scored.

3. The defensive growth

All of the questions were valid. Would Alabama be able to replace the talent lost to the NFL? Would the young players step up into bigger roles? Alabama answered those questions and has played well defensively all season. The Crimson Tide forces turnovers, their secondary doesn’t give up a ton of big plays and they usually stop the run. Alabama squeezes the life out of foes with its defense while the offense drops 50. Few teams, if any, have that level of balance.

4. Tua Tagovailoa

You can’t mention Alabama football without bringing up what Tua Tagovailoa has done this season. The sophomore quarterback has simply been special — a magician in the pocket and with his legs. Tagovailoa took Alabama to an unthinkable level offensively. He’s considered the Heisman Trophy favorite, and it’s hard to envision a scenario where he doesn’t bring the hardware home.

5. Quinnen Williams’ monster season

Mention the word unblockable and images of Quinnen Williams will appear. He was a monster all season at nose guard. It didn’t matter if teams double-teamed him or used a running back to chip, Williams found a way to make plays. He has played so well this season that he’s being mentioned as a potential top-10 pick in the NFL Draft.

6. Juking Jerry Jeudy

Watching Jerry Jeudy juke defenders out of their cleats was one of the funniest parts of this Alabama season. Jeudy has incredible stopping ability and swerved plenty defenders on his way to becoming a Biletnikoff Award finalist. Jeudy will go down as one of the best receivers in Alabama history.

7. The skill players

Tagovailoa gets a lot of credit, and rightfully so, but he can distribute the ball to an embarrassing amount of weapons. There’s Jeudy, DeVonta Smith, Henry Ruggs, Jaylen Waddle, Irv Smith Jr., Damien Harris, Josh Jacobs and Najee Harris. Alabama has never had a group of skill players like this. There is not one player you can focus on and think you’ll have success on defense. All of them will burn you. When we look back, this group will go down as the best collection of skill players during the Saban era and likely in Alabama history.

8. Back-to-back shutouts

We all knew the offense couldn’t score 50 on every opponent. LSU and Mississippi State have two of the best defenses in the SEC. Both presented tough challenges for the Crimson Tide, holding them to 24 and 29 points, respectively. But it didn’t matter because Alabama’s defense brought its A-game to both contests. Alabama held those two ranked SEC opponents scoreless in back-to-back weeks. Holding anyone scoreless is impressive, but doing it against a ranked division foe is next level stuff. Citadel scored more points than those two teams.

9. Citadel’s option

Speaking of Citadel, the way the Bulldogs ran their option was a thing of beauty. They scored two long touchdown runs on perfectly executed option plays. You couldn’t run it any better. The first half against Citadel was Alabama’s most tense 30 minutes of November.

10. Extra point struggles

The most exciting part of an Alabama game was watching the Crimson Tide attempt extra points. It became comical to see Bama miss PAT after PAT. Saban said it was unacceptable and that Alabama would try other options if there was someone who could do better.

Marq Burnett

Veteran Alabama beat reporter Marq Burnett covers the Crimson Tide for Saturday Down South.