The game changed, and so did Alabama and Nick Saban

And after all the noise this fall about how the program was slipping, how the rest of the SEC was catching up, how Saban was struggling to adapt to the world of up-tempo offenses, here we are staring at a familiar reality: Alabama is two wins from its fourth national title in six years and playing its best football of the season.

“I always believed in this group, I just asked them after the Ole Miss game, ‘How are you going to respond to a loss?’ ” Saban said. “We’ve only had one team that didn’t lose a game. That’s a very difficult thing to do, and I think they responded the right way. Obviously we wouldn’t be here now if they didn’t, and they really overcame a lot of adversity and some real tough games to get here. You have to have a lot of appreciation for that kind of competitive character. I’ve never wanted a group to have a chance to be successful more than this one.”