S-E-C, S-E-C? It’s Just Bama Now
Alabama just won their fourth national title in seven years. I’ve got Bama fatigue.
During the SEC’s run of seven straight national titles, SEC pride was at its highest. The S-E-C chant at the end of a big victory was a lot of fun, and knowing your team is apart of that tradition was great. But now it’s just the Bama show, and it’s not that much fun anymore.
Florida won, LSU won, Florida won again – then Bama, then Auburn. Four different teams in five years for the SEC from 2006-2010. That was dominance from a number of different teams that really showed the muscle of the conference. 2011 was the apex when Alabama faced LSU for the BCS title – a game that finally pushed the playoff through.
When Alabama beat Notre Dame in 2012 – a game I certainly pulled for the Tide to win – SEC fatigue was everywhere outside the conference. And they all celebrated the next year when Florida State ended the streak by beating Auburn.
Now that the streak is over, I’ve got Bama fatigue – almost in the same vein that I hated the New York Yankees in the late 90s, early 2000s. They just keep winning, and winning it all. They are the immovable force that neither MSU nor any other SEC team can seem to get past.
They have an average quarterback this year, play horribly against Ole Miss and it looks like they will have two or three losses in 2015. But no, they end up winning the national championship as they keep getting better and better each game and had the Heisman Trophy winner on their team for more gravy.
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If they didn’t get that re-match against LSU in 2011 or if Georgia has just gotten five more yards in 2012 I probably wouldn’t feel this way. Or maybe I would.
Mississippi State had back-to-back head coaches who graduated from Alabama and played under Bear Bryant in Jackie Sherrill and Sylvester Croom. They put an extra emphasis on beating Alabama…and we had some success with six wins during those 18 years (33% is a lot considering our history vs. the Crimson Tide). When I was in school from 2002-06 I honestly hated Bama more than Ole Miss. That had a lot to do with the great basketball rivalry at that time, but it was there for football as well.
Dan Mullen has shifted all that Bama hate onto Ole Miss so there’s three or four scoops of hate in the Rebel bowl, but I still don’t like Bama, and maybe more today than I have in a while. Will Nick Saban just leave already?
Alabama is 98-12 over the last eight years. Somehow they’ve only won four SEC titles during that time frame. That’s how incredibly tough the SEC is. And somehow, during that same time frame, MSU has managed to lift itself out of the cellar that was 2001-2006 ((17-52 (.246)) to six straight bowl seasons and a 59-43 (.578) record since 2008; 50-28 (.641) since 2010.
Each new year there’s a hope for every SEC Western division team that maybe this is the year that Bama slips up a couple of times. But every year they just lose once and they pretty much dominate every other game. And in the end they are right there in the running for another national title, which they win more times than not.
I’m done hoping State can defeat Bama. I’m done pulling for Bama against out-of-conference teams. I just want them to go away.