Ranking Alabama’s National Championships in football
By John Buhler
2009
2009 was a truly special year for the Alabama Crimson Tide. Not only did the football program win its first National Championship in 17 years, it was also the 13th in school history, the first of the Nick Saban era, and Alabama had its first Heisman Trophy winner that year in the form of sophomore running back Mark Ingram.
It took Saban three seasons to take an Alabama team that had been irrelevant in the SEC for well over a decade and turn them into a national power. The way that the team began to thrive in 2008 was only the very beginning of the Saban dynasty in Tuscaloosa.
Saban’s Tide had to play the Texas Longhorns who at the time were somewhat of a dynasty in the Big 12 under head coach Mack Brown and led by Heisman finalist Colt McCoy at quarterback. Entering the 2010 Rose Bowl which was also the BCS National Championship that year, Texas was the preeminent program in college football. All the best talent went to the Longhorns in Austin.
Alabama went on to win the Rose Bowl over Texas by two scores, 37-21. It was a changing of the guard in college football. Alabama has become the best program in the country for going on six years. Texas never recovered from last loss and are now arguably the sixth-best Division I team in their football-rich state.
2009 was Saban’s only undefeated championship while at Alabama. The Tide’s crushing victory over the Longhorns in the 2010 Rose Bowl was the signature win that built Saban’s program into a dynasty, the first time Alabama had been that since the Paul “Bear” Bryant era in Tuscaloosa.
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