Alabama shows it's miles nonetheless the most powerful team in university football

 In dismantling Miami, Alabama shows it's miles nonetheless the most powerful team in university football

the greatest college soccer coach of all time, coming off the best season that his GOAT era has ever produced, caught to his overselling of his uneasiness on Saturday morning. Only a few hours earlier than his defending national champion Alabama squad confronted off towards an oft-categorised "resurgent" Miami Hurricanes group looking for to crash the top 10 by using stemming the Tide, Saban spoke in almost muted tones. No smiles. Just foreboding.

"There's constantly that little little bit of, did I do a terrific task? How's this gonna paintings for us?" Saban said at the College Football Hall of Fame when asked if he still receives first-recreation jitters after more than a quarter century as a college head coach. "There's a little anxiety there."

He mentioned the load of expectancies, the mission of changing a traditionally unstoppable 2020 offense that was powered by way of a now-gone Heisman Trophy-prevailing wide receiver and a first-spherical NFL draft pick at quarterback. He reminded that no longer most effective had he needed to rent  new coordinators, however had simplest one returning assistant on his whole offensive body of workers.

As Saban listed it all, it indeed sounded convincingly insurmountable.

And then his crew beat 14th-ranked Miami forty four-thirteen. The Tide posted 501 yards of offense as substitute quarterback Bryce Young set Alabama first-start passing facts with 344 yards and four touchdowns. As for the receivers charged with entering into the cleats of final 12 months's all-stars, they did so en masse, with a whopping 10 players hauling in at least one catch.

The guy who spent his morning trying to persuade us of his lack of self belief spent his postgame downright giddy over the newfound self assurance he had simply seen round his younger locker room.

"I suppose this is in reality vital, specifically when you have plenty of new gamers that don't have a number of experience," the sixty nine-year-old instruct said moments after posing with those kids while wearing an antique leather helmet awarded via the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game. "When they get out into the sport and that they have a few fulfillment, the payoff for all that work they've put in, that in reality facilitates the self assurance. Hopefully it will help them preserve to develop and enhance."

To witness what occurred inside the sci-fi-searching Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Saturday afternoon became indeed like being trapped inside some type of Marvel Comics time warp. A solid four hours of houndstooth-decorated deja vu.

Stop me if you've heard this before. Actually, do not prevent me. Keep studying. Because after tonight, this history will no longer repeat itself for pretty some time.

2008. Week 1. Atlanta. No. 24 Alabama upsets No. 9 Clemson 34-10. The win ignites Alabama's return to the big time as it wins 12 regular-season video games. Clemson absolutely falls aside and fires educate Tommy Bowden.

2009. Week 1. Atlanta. Fifth-ranked Alabama beats 7th-ranked Virginia Tech 34-24. Alabama goes on to win his first country wide championship below Saban, while the Hokies fade to a 3-loss season.

2013. Week 1. Atlanta. No. 1 Alabama 35, Virginia Tech 10.

2014. Week 1. Atlanta. No. 2 Alabama 33, West Virginia 23.

2019. Week 1. Atlanta. No. 2 Alabama forty nine, Duke 3.

And then the most grotesque mauling of all of them, a 17-factor win over No.Three Florida State in 2017 that started the beginning of the end for Jimbo Fisher's time with the Seminoles.

Those are just the games played in Atlanta. There was the fifty two-6 thrashing of No. 20 USC in 2016, the 2012 and '15 beatdowns of Michigan and Wisconsin, both in Arlington, Texas. And there has been a fifty one-14 destruction of Louisville in Orlando to kickoff the 2018 season.

Every beginning-act Battle of Atlanta, or Orlando, or Arlington, received has served the closing purpose of putting someone of their location. Perhaps it was an vintage-school powerhouse that had to be instructed that Alabama became for actual. Perhaps it was an upstart that idea it is probably capable of crash the Alabama playoff blockade. Perhaps it turned into just a exhibit executed in the front of a state of recruits, in particular those dwelling inside the neighborhoods of the groups the Tide simply beaten.

And in at least more than one instances, it has felt like Saban letting a whole convention recognise that its satisfactory group isn't yet ready for SEC prime time.

Saturday's win over Miami felt adore it become protecting all of the above.

That's why the lots of Alabama enthusiasts who walked up Peachtree Street on Saturday night time were celebrating the win however have been also mourning the loss of days like this one. Now, after a decade of neutral-site openers, Alabama has booked domestic-and-home series with Power five fighters all the manner through 2035.

Will it's really worth losing the $five million that Bama has obtained from the Atlanta bowl parents every September? They say sure, via bringing extra value to Tuscaloosa season-ticket holders.

Fair enough. But will or not it's well worth losing the mojo hooked up and messages sent in the course of this 11-zero season-starting streak?

"I would not worry too much approximately Coach Saban in the future," Miami head coach Manny Diaz stated with a laugh. "Things seem to be working out for him thus far."