Alabama starting over after disappointing 2013 finish (SI.com article)

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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Those who believe the stunning ending to last November's Iron Bowl still haunts Alabama coach Nick Saban are mistaken. His displeasure stretches back farther than that.

"It wasn't the last play of the Auburn game that gets me," Saban said during an interview in his office earlier this week. "It's how we played in the game. We had a couple penalties. We shot ourselves in the foot, missed a field goal, ran the ball to the seven-yard line, then had a holding penalty. We had the ball inside the 20-yard line three times in the fourth quarter and never scored a point.

"And then we had some of the same issues in the bowl game [against Oklahoma]."

At most schools, a two-game losing streak is a temporary hiccup. At Alabama, it's cause for an existential crisis. Despite winning three of the college football's last five national championships, signing its fourth straight top-rated recruiting class in February and Saban earning a new $7 million annual contract, the Crimson Tide's eighth-year coach is hitting the reset button on his entire operation. Alabama, in his words, is "starting all over," just like it's 2007 again, when Saban was beginning to build the program that would emerge as the sport's gold standard.

On numerous occasions this offseason, he has lamented that the Tide got complacent in 2013 following consecutive BCS titles in '11 and '12, even though they started 11-0 and remained in the hunt for a third straight crown right up until Auburn's Chris Davis returned that missed field goal 109 yards for a touchdown on Nov. 30. "After the LSU game last year [a 38-17 win on Nov. 9], it seemed like we didn't practice as well, didn't pay attention to detail, didn't prepare quite as well," Saban said. "We didn't play very well at Mississippi State [the following week]. Started turning the ball over more, quit really focusing on the things that helped you have success.

"When you win a lot, sometimes you don't continue to emphasize those very things that created the success to start with. Everybody just sort of loses a little respect for those things, whether it's attention to detail, discipline and execution, giving effort, finishing plays, preparing for the game like you need to. So starting all over is kinda just, go back to the beginning and make sure we're doing the things that maybe we lost some respect for that are the very things that helped us be successful to start with."

The perception of Alabama's 2013 team as entitled underachievers took hold when star quarterback AJ McCarron made critical comments about the Tide's younger cast of former all-everything prospects in the week leading up to the Super Bowl. But McCarron was hardly the only veteran from that squad who realized something was amiss before 'Bama's 34-28 loss to archrival Auburn and its 45-31 Sugar Bowl defeat to 17-point underdog Oklahoma on Jan. 2.

"We kind of got complacent," said rising senior linebacker Trey DePriest. "We just wrote ourselves in as going to the big dance and stopped doing all those little things that were giving us that opportunity to go to the big dance. We automatically thought that, all right, since we beat LSU, these next two teams, we're going to roll and then we'll see who we play in our bowl game.

"It didn't go like that."

Saban has been pleased thus far with "the attitude and approach the players have taken in the spring." The 2014 Tide will make their unofficial debut in Saturday's A-Day Game, which is generally one of the more informative spring games nationally due to Saban's emphasis on legitimate competition. The 70,000-plus attendees will likely focus primarily on two figures: a guy in a visor and the guy under center.

In January, Saban stunned the college football world -- including a large portion of his own fan base -- by hiring controversial former USC coach Lane Kiffin to replace offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier, now at Michigan. This, after the then-unemployed Kiffin visited 'Bama during bowl practices last year to provide "professional development" to the staff. (Saban insists reports at the time that Kiffin came to critique the Tide's offense were a mischaracterization and noted that former Indianapolis Colts offensive coordinator Tom Moore did much the same thing a year earlier.)

Given Kiffin's dubious reputation dating back to his one-year stint at Tennessee in 2009, it's fair to ask why a coach like Saban, with the clout to hire just about any offensive mind, gravitated toward Kiffin. The most basic explanation is supply and demand.

"The biggest thing is ... we felt maintaining the pro-style approach was the most beneficial to the players that we have," said Saban. "So when you start looking around in college football -- because there's so much of the [spread] stuff -- it's hard to find people that have a background in [pro-style]. Lane philosophically is a lot like I am in terms of what they did at USC, what they did at Tennessee when he was there, so it was a pretty good fit for us."

Saban's assistants are off limits to the media except for one day in August, so it wasn't possible to ask Kiffin about his vision for the offense. Still, the first glimpse of that unit will come on Saturday. And Kiffin's biggest imprint might come before the ball is snapped.

"He's got a little more experience at doing multiples of things," said Saban. "Pro-style to me is moving players around -- not necessarily running different plays but maybe a different presentation in terms of formations and all that. We'll be a little bit more able to do some of those things."

Receiver Amari Cooper describes Kiffin as "a cool dude" who "likes to get his playmakers the ball." The coordinator has no shortage of them to use. Cooper, a third-year standout who amassed an eye-opening nine catches for 228 yards and five touchdowns in Alabama's two spring scrimmages, leads a deep receiving corps that includes veterans Christion Jones, DeAndrew White and explosive sophomore Chris Black. Star tailback T.J. Yeldon and breakout Sugar Bowl performer Derrick Henry headline the backfield, while tight ends Brian Vogler and O.J. Howard are established weapons.

But those playmakers' potential will hinge heavily on Kiffin's ability to develop a capable replacement for Heisman Trophy runner-up McCarron and two new starters on the offensive line. By all accounts, fifth-year senior Blake Sims has asserted command of the quarterback competition this spring, but that doesn't mean he'll be the starter this fall. Florida State transfer Jacob Coker, who battled eventual Heisman winner Jameis Winston for the Seminoles' starting job last preseason, will arrive this summer. The Tide's quarterback race therefore might remain undecided come Alabama's season opener against West Virginia on Aug. 30.

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