Windham Wrap-up: Alabama Football Reaches Double-Digit Wins for 14th Straight Season
With the win over Arkansas on Saturday, Alabama not only clinched the SEC West and a return trip to Atlanta, but the Crimson Tide also secured a 10-win season for the 14th straight season.
That's just expected for Alabama at this point because it's happened every year for the last 14 years now, but when you look at the landscape of college football in that timespan, it's not normal at all.
As recently as this weekend, another coach at a trad SEC power has been fired. Dan Mullen is out at Florida after losing to Missouri. This is less than one year after the Gators gave one of the greatest Alabama teams of all time everything it could handle in the 2020 SEC championship game.
We've already known for a few weeks that Ed Orgeron will be done at LSU at the end of the season less than two years removed from going 15-0 and winning a national championship with the Tigers. Nine of the 14 SEC teams have a new coach since 2020, and with Florida and LSU looking for new coaches at the end of the season that number will jump from nine to 11.
Yet, here Alabama is with another double-digit win total and trip to the SEC championship. At this point, it's almost easy to grow numb to the success Alabama has had, but the turnover around the SEC shows how remarkable the consistency of the success in Tuscaloosa is.
Obviously, the main ingredient and most consistent factor throughout all of that is Nick Saban. As assistant coaches and first round draft picks come and go, Saban has continued to build success.
While this year's Alabama is sitting at 10-1, for most of the season, they haven't consistently performed at a level that people have become used to. Even Saban has acknowledged that this team has championship potential yet lacks consistency in playing at that level. The time is running low for them to be able to prove that, but with a matchup with No. 1 Georgia looming, that's exactly what this team is going to have to do.
