[Bamabeachlivin]

The calendar says three years.
A brief snapshot in a 114-year-old program.
History suggests there have been chasms between 10-win seasons at Alabama since Bear Bryant retired.
NCAA probations, coaching changes, scandals, losing seasons. Alabama has rebounded every time, never going more than three seasons without 10 wins since Bear stepped down after the 1982 season.
Resiliency doesn't begin to describe 'Bama. There are only a handful of programs that bounce right back from major NCAA penalties. Fewer then that continue to thrive despite going through coaches like they were bon bons. None that could survive the white-hot heat of the day-to-day pressure to win.
"We hold ourselves to a higher standard," Alabama quarterback John Parker Wilson said this week.
He was talking about the current Tide, at their accustomed No. 1 spot in the polls for the first time in the regular season since 1980. He could have been talking the steel plating that has encased the entire program for decades.
Nick Saban could become the fourth coach this decade to win a national championship in his second year at a school. There might be pressure elsewhere to duplicate that feat. At Alabama it is lived every day.
"We appreciate the acknowledgement (of being ranked No. 1)," Saban said, "but that really doesn't define anything."
Not until the ranking is backed up with what the school would proclaim to be its 13th national championship. Win No. 10 for Saban could come this week, in that second season, if Alabama is able to beat LSU.
It seems like a lifetime since 'Bama was at this place. Safety Rashad Johnson was asked the last time he received back slaps and congratulations on campus.
"Uh, I guess it would have to be two years ago," he said. That's right. The last 10-win season was in 2005. That Tide team finished 10-2. A season later, Mike Shula was sent packing. That's Alabama.
Story

[Stoney]

Alabama doesn't play Mike Shula found that out. Saban is a man capable of winning it all and is currently doing just that despite the naysayers in the national media.