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SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Nick Saban spoke with his arms folded tightly against his chest, hands gripping his arms, his body language signaling an inner angst he was trying to contain.
The best coach in college football history had just overseen the worst performance of his Alabama tenure, at the worst possible time. The Crimson Tide, ranked No. 1 all year and the defending national champion, had just unraveled to a stunning degree against Clemson in the College Football Playoff title game, losing 44-16. It was, by margin of defeat and size of the stakes, the biggest debacle of his 12 years at the school.
Without warning, the famed Saban Process became a paroxysm of incompetence. It sent the Alabama fans, who always laugh last and loudest, sullenly scurrying for the exits at Levi’s Stadium well before the game ended. And most of America, good and tired of squirming beneath the coach’s boot heel, bathed in the schadenfreude of the moment.
The prime elements of the meltdown:
Two interceptions by Heisman Trophy runner-up Tua Tagovailoa, who had thrown just four in the previous 14 games. The first of those picks – a recklessly blind throw into the flat – was returned 44 yards for a touchdown just 100 seconds into the game, setting an ominous tone for the night.
Six penalties for 60 yards, some of them at acutely costly times.
An utterly futile fake field goal in the third quarter, which featured kicker Joseph Bulovas as a lead blocker (no, really) for holder Mac Jones, who ran into the teeth of Clemson’s powerful defensive line.
Blown coverages aplenty, which had to be particularly galling for a coach who takes special pride in mentoring defensive backs.
Oh, and don’t forget the handful of puzzling play calls, forehead-slapping red-zone failures and kicking fiascos.
It was all so completely foreign. This is a coach who has won six national championships, five of them since 2009, often with a ruthless precision that seemed like the stuff of sci-fi cyborgs. The expectation of airtight execution by the Tide had become ingrained over the years.
Even on those occasions when ‘Bama was beaten in a big game – like the 2014 and ’16 playoffs – it never looked like this. Those games, it was a play here or there, a one-score loss. This game, it was a wipeout in which the other team performed like a Saban machine and the Saban machine broke down spectacularly.
