Shifting Mentalities: Alabama Football Adapts from Underdog to Business Trip
Following Alabama football's 41-24 win over top-ranked Georgia at the 2021 SEC Championship Game, it was very evident what the Crimson Tide's mentality had been heading into that game.
Head coach Nick Saban said that his players wanted to gain more respect. After losing by a last-second field goal to Texas A&M earlier in the season and a month of November filled with tight games that saw Alabama narrowly squeak by in the winner's column, the team had grown tired of not being taken seriously by the media or college football fans.
Outside linebacker Will Anderson Jr. made it abundantly clear that he and his teammates knew of their underdog status. After the game, he went as far as to say that it had been what fueled him heading into the game against the Bulldogs. Throughout Saban's tenure, the Crimson Tide hasn't been the underdog heading into a game on more than a handful of occasions since the 2000s, and Alabama responded in kind.
So now that Alabama is back to being the No. 1 team in the country and the heavy favorite to win the College Football Playoff, what mentality is the team undertaking now that the status of underdog has been taken away? In short, the Crimson Tide is taking the mindset that its upcoming Cotton Bowl semifinal against No. 4 Cincinnati is nothing short of a business trip.
This past Monday, Saban revealed as such.
“We want our players to have fun," Saban said to the media via Zoom. "We want them to have fun in practice, we want them to have fun in the game. But we also want them to get the kind of rest, take care of themselves, don’t put themselves in positions where it could be a detriment to their brand or to their ability to get ready and perform in the game. We’re gonna be there for a while.
"I want the players to enjoy themselves, but I also want them to be smart about how they take care of themselves. That’s all part of this being a business trip. And most of the time, their willingness to do that is pretty much says what they’re committed to and how important it is to them because it becomes a priority for them to play well in the game. But I usually let the players decide what the curfews are and that type of thing.”
Throughout the eight-year history of the College Football Playoff, Alabama has made it to a semifinal in seven of those seasons. While this season's outcome has yet to be determined, Alabama has won five of its six prior semifinal appearances. It's nothing short of remarkable that the Crimson Tide has played in five of the seven CFP National Championship Games thus far, but that's why Alabama is once again highly favored to win it all.
There is no team in college football with more playoff experience than Alabama, and that's why the team is seeing the trip as just another business trip.
“We’ve got an approach like we approach every game," Anderson said on Tuesday. "It’s all about discipline. I think that’s the biggest thing. We’ve showed great discipline and I don’t think we’re going to have any problems out of anybody because everybody knows what’s at stake and what we have to do.
"It’s a business trip and not a vacation. Everybody is locked in and ready to go.”
Shifting from underdog to having a target painted on its back is something that Alabama football has not had to do often over the last decade under Saban. However, it seems that the team is taking to the mentality shift rather well.
On Wednesday, the Crimson Tide will conduct its final practice in Tuscaloosa before taking a couple of days off for Christmas. On Sunday, the team will once again regroup on campus before flying out to Dallas for the Cotton Bowl. A week of practices later in the Lone Star State, and Alabama will finally face Cincinnati.
It won't take that long for that mentality to set in, though. In fact, it seemingly already has in practice. That is, if Saban and Anderson's quotes are anything to go off of.
“Practice has been great," Anderson said. "We’ve been coming to practice with a lot of energy. We’ve had a lot of technique practices, so we’ve had a lot of good-on-good on. The energy is always good when competing against the offense good on good. The energy has been great.”
While the Crimson Tide might be a 13.5-point favorite heading into the semifinal against the Bearcats, it won't be an easy trip. Remember, Alabama was heavily favored in most of its games this season and ultimately left with a loss and several close games in the latter half of the year. Cincinnati is ranked No. 4 for a reason, and it has just as many reasons — if not more — to want to prove why it belongs in the nation's top four teams.
