Taking Care of Business the Most Overlooked, Underappreciated Part of Nick Saban's Epic Run

Even though Alabama played two extra Southeastern Conference games this season, it finished the regular season undefeated for the third time since 2016.

Normally, that would be a jaw-dropping statistic. Instead, it was indicative of Alabama's 52-3 victory at Arkansas on Saturday.

It was ho-hum. It was predictable. It was, dare we say boring?

But that's a good thing for Nick Saban.

Any pitcher in the major leagues will tell you the key to a successful season isn't doing well when you have your best stuff. It's getting through games when you don't.

No. 1 Alabama wasn't at its best Saturday, at least emotionally or psychologically at first. Coming off back-to-back games against Auburn and LSU it may have been a little beat-up physically as well, not to mention being in the middle of playing on the road for three straight Saturdays.

"This was a tough situation for us," Saban said.

But little about this game was comfortable to begin with.

During a normal year this would have been played on Oct. 10, more indicative of when facing Arkansas was considered a benchmark for how Alabama's season would go pre-Saban.

It was rescheduled for a week ago, when it was sunny and 61 degrees in Fayetteville, and would have served as Alabama's regular-season finale, only the LSU game got bumped due to one of about a billion things that have gone wrong in Baton Rouge recently.

In there is the key to the crazy coronavirus-filled 2020 season, and perhaps both the most overlooked and impressive aspect of the Saban dynasty.

Alabama took care of business.

It's not the glamorous wins that really define Saban, although there have been plenty of those. It's the Saturdays like these.

Alabama had already wrapped up a spot in next week's SEC Championship Game, while Arkansas was getting a free shot at the nation's No. 1 team in its regular-season finale. For a rising program, and the Western Division suddenly seems to be full of them (minus LSU), it was something to build upon heading into a bowl game and offseason.

So it was a trap game.

"Regardless of the circumstances, we had to prove what kind of team that we are," senior running back Brian Robinson Jr. said.

Everyone knows that Alabama has been ranked No. 1 at some point of every season since 2008, a 13-year streak that will take a long, long time to be matched (if at all). During that time period, the Crimson Tide has not been ranked lower than No. 17, after it was No. 24 in the preseason ranking that year.

According to College Poll Archive, Alabama was in the top 10 in 96.2 percent of the balloting since then, and in the top five for 86.7 percent. Overall, the Crimson Tide has been in the AP Top 25 for 210 polls, the longest active streak in college football.

Just as impressive as all that, and directly tied to those records, is Alabama notching 98 straight wins against unranked opponents.

Granted, it's rare when unranked teams topple a No. 1, like Oregon State over Southern California in 2008, yet there are still plenty of examples of shocking upsets. Ranked teams lose every week, and occasionally we see something like Purdue over Ohio State two years ago, or Iowa State knocking No. 2 Oklahoma State out of title-game contention in 2011.

Alabama's ongoing streak began with a win over Colorado on Dec. 30, 2007 in the Independence Bowl, when George W. Bush was still president. The previous record was 72 games, shared by Miami (Fla.) (1984-95) and Florida (1989-2000).

Since then, only Ohio State has single-digit losses to unranked opponents with nine.

That's a lot of business being taken care of by the Crimson Tide.

Alabama's goals at Arkansas were pretty simple: Win, improve and hopefully get out of Fayetteville with as few injuries/setbacks as possible, something that seems to rarely happen.

That lasted just one play as sophomore linebacker Christian Harris suffered a shoulder injury. Combined with no Evan Neal at right tackle, senior wide receiver DeVonta Smith taking an extra ankle twist at the end of a play, plus the cold, dreary conditions, and Alabama got off to an understandably slow start.

Come on man 🤦🏽, that ain’t right pic.twitter.com/kGCuROaZPj
— Mac Hereford (@Mac_Hereford) December 12, 2020

Only then the sun poked out through the clouds for a brief moment, as if to serve a reminder of some of what can still be achieved. The Crimson Tide offensive machine subsequently got rolling.

It was predictably sparked by a Smith touchdown, except on punt return instead of a deep reception. The 84-yard score was pretty reflective of the difference between the teams, as the first wave of Razorbacks came in on the short side of the field, while the trailers unsuccessfully filled in the wide gaps on the other side.

The resulting lane Smith ran through was so big that the Heisman Trophy candidate went untouched, just like Alabama was essentially unchallenged the rest of the day.

Senior running back Najee Harris went from slipping and sliding on the Arkansas grass to scoring to open the second quarter. It was followed by another Harris score, and two of Robinson's three rushing touchdowns. The score quickly went from 3-3 to 38-3 at the break.

By then, the only question was long it would take Saban to pull the starters, which was exactly what Alabama hoped for and needed en route to becoming the only team in SEC history to win 10 conference games during a season.

In this case, boring wasn't just good, but great.

"We're certainly going to challenged in a different way," Saban said about facing No 6. Florida next week in Atlanta. “I think we have to show that we can stand up and play against a team like that."

Bring on the SEC Championship Game and College Football Playoff. Coronavirus issues are still a concern, but no team is in better position for the postseason.