DeBoer and company better get used to these Name Games because more are coming, including home-and-homes already set with Florida State, Ohio State, Oklahoma State and Notre Dame. Kudos to AD Greg Byrne for having the stones to schedule like a man.
The older Wimp Sanderson gets, the smarter you realize he was. No, seriously. That’s a compliment. He coached basketball better for longer than anyone in Alabama history because he understood, regardless of sport, what it took to win. He learned it through his own experience as well as working alongside his Crimson Tide predecessor, C.M. Newton, and observing Alabama football’s legendary old GOAT, Bear Bryant.
It went like this: Line up an annual non-conference opponent with historic street cred. Florida State. Michigan. Penn State. Miami. Etc., etc., etc. Play them at a neutral site, for the most part, but sprinkle in an occasional home-and-home. If you can catch them at a time when their name is better than their game, all the better.
That Wisconsin team was a rarity among the 16 opponents Saban’s Alabama teams played in a Name Game, 14 of which the Tide defeated. Those Badgers were one of only five victims to start and finish the season in the AP rankings, along with 2009 Virginia Tech, 2012 Michigan, 2016 USC and 2023 Texas. They were one of only four teams to win a bowl game after starting the season with a Game 1 or Game 2 loss to Saban and the Tide. The others: 2009 Virginia Tech, 2016 USC and 2017 FSU.
That’s a lot of correlation without causation. You can debate whether losing to Saban in a Name Game had anything to do with the five coaches who did so either not finishing that season or not returning the next year. They were Clemson’s Tommy Bowden in 2008; Penn State’s Joe Paterno in 2011; Florida State’s Jimbo Fisher in 2017; Louisville’s Bobby Petrino in 2018; and Miami’s Manny Diaz in 2021.
That domination of big-boy non-conference games is another Saban tradition DeBoer has been tasked to uphold. Although it appears Wisconsin’s name is better than its game after uninspiring wins over sparring partners Western Michigan and South Dakota, the Badgers aren’t Louisville 2018.
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