On the surface, you could say that the 2007 Alabama football season was lackluster.
The Crimson Tide finished 7-6 in their first season under newly hired coach Nick Saban, with no trophies outside of the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, no trips to New York for the Heisman Trophy finalists and no weeks spent ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press poll.
It was an average season — or at least it appeared average at first glance — but a 7-6 record belies the brick-by-brick foundation that launched Alabama into 15 years of dominance never to be replicated in sports history.
To truly capture the changes that were happening within and around the program, it's not enough to start with the 2007 season opener against Western Carolina. Instead, let's go all the way back to the spring of 2007, Saban's first few months as head coach in Tuscaloosa.
Saban's arrival was welcomed by Alabama fans across the state who expected him to bring them wins, but the remaining players from the 2006 team had to endure a major adjustment.
“He came in and didn't ask anybody about us, he didn't know anything about us, so we all started with a clean slate,” linebacker Erik Anders (2006-2009) told BamaCentral. “If you were the bad guy, now you can be the good guy. It was a new opportunity for everybody, and he made sure we were all giving ourselves a chance to compete every day in practice. Every day was a battle for your spot.”
That rivalry, played out daily on the practice field, carried over into Saban's first spring and eventually led to the annual A-Day game, the final scrimmage of spring practice open to the public.
On April 21, 2007, Tuscaloosa was in the midst of a big spring practice game.
Fans from around the state and beyond filled the streets of Tuscaloosa in crimson and white. Looking at photos of the city that day, you could easily mistake it for the SEC season opener or even the Iron Bowl. But it was just a spring game, and fans' first chance to see Saban's Alabama team in action.
“It was amazing. I don't think anything like that had ever happened before, and it continued pretty consistently every year after that,” Anders said. “I think everybody was excited – the fans, the players, the backers, the coaching staff. We didn't know what to expect, but we knew he'd won before, so we all wanted to see him instill a winning culture from the get-go.”
Rodney Orr, Tider Insider's Alabama correspondent, remembers walking into Bryant-Denny Stadium that day and being shocked to see the area around the stadium filled with a tsunami-like ocean of red.
“When I went to the press box, I had no idea what was going to happen,” Oh said. “I remember sitting there and saying, 'Hey, there might be 70,000 people,' and a few minutes later it was, 'Maybe 75,000. Maybe 85,000.' Next thing you know, they were hanging from the beams. They'd packed the aisles, they'd closed the gates, and there were 10,000 people milling around outside. It was unbelievable, unbelievable.”
The officially announced attendance for A-Day in 2007 was 92,138. No spring game in college football history had ever seen such a high attendance.
“This is Alabama. This is reality. This is why I came here,” cornerback Javier Arenas (2006-2009) said of the A-Day crowd. “This is why people have loved this school and this football team for so long. This is the way it's supposed to be. That's what I thought it was.”
For the players, it symbolized what future games in Tuscaloosa will actually be like under Saban's new regime.
“This was just a spring game, but what happens during the season? It's the Saban effect. Everywhere he goes, everything he does, he's a winner.”
This fan support clearly shifted the energy around the Alabama program. Gone were the days of drawing mediocre crowds to support a mediocre product. The Crimson Tide fan base was hungry for a championship team, 15 years removed from their 1992 national championship.
“The fan base was hungry. Think of the crowds when Saban arrived at the airport. The fan base saw the coach they had been waiting for,” Orr said. “Alabama had been waiting for this coach since Coach Bryant retired. No one knew what was coming at the time, but you had a feeling something special was about to happen.”
For fans and players alike, the day signified that change was on the way and that brighter days were just around the corner for college football's former premier program.
“I'm getting goosebumps just talking about it,” wide receiver Mike McCoy (2006-2009) said, “But then that first A-Day, the air seemed different. It felt like the grass was a little greener. I felt that itch. I knew Saban had a point to prove.”
That excitement carried over into the 2007 season, which was full of ups and downs but most notably offered a glimpse of what Alabama could become under Coach Saban.
The Crimson Tide beat a top-ranked Arkansas team at home in the third game of the season, a game that could be considered the first big win of the Saban era, but for Oh covering the team, the most notable win came later in the season on the third Saturday in October.
The Arkansas win propelled Alabama into the Top 25. It set up a ranked-versus-ranked game against Georgia and College GameDay's first visit to Tuscaloosa under Saban. Alabama lost to the Bulldogs in overtime and then suffered its second straight loss the following week against Florida State.
The Crimson Tide then won consecutive games against Houston and Ole Miss, putting them in position to host the Volunteers with a 5-2 record.
On October 20, 2007, Alabama hosted No. 20 ranked Tennessee at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Saban's first matchup against a fierce northern rival. Alabama was trailing at home and had multiple players suspended from the game.
Despite this, the Crimson Tide defeated the University of Tennessee 41-17 at Bryant-Denny High School.
“Going into the Tennessee game, I thought, 'This team probably doesn't have a chance,'” Orr said, “But they came out and took control of the game from the opening kickoff. From there they dominated Tennessee, 41-17, and shocked Tennessee. We got a glimpse of what Alabama could be.”
After the Tennessee game, the season went downhill. With five key players suspended for four games, the Crimson Tide lost their final four games of the regular season, including a close loss at home to eventual national champion LSU, followed by losses to Mississippi State, Louisiana-Monroe University, and Auburn.
A 6-6 regular season forced the team to face Colorado in the Independence Bowl. While it wasn't the bowl game many Alabama fans were hoping for in Saban's first year as coach, the game marked a significant change in the locker room in terms of how Saban's teams would be operated from then on.
“I felt like the coaching staff didn't really care if we won or not, so the seniors decided they wanted to go into the game with a winning record, and we did,” defensive end Wallace Gilberry (2003-2007) said. “Being the defensive MVP of that game solidified my time at Alabama.”
That player-driven mentality took hold for the University of Alabama football team after 2007. For fans, the records may not have been what they had hoped for, but it was clear that the light was once again shining on the University of Alabama football program.
“I think most people understood that the first year was going to be difficult,” Orr said. “The talent level just wasn't where we expected it to be. We were hopeful that Saban would recruit some good people and things would turn around. We all understood that things would get a lot better in the near future — maybe not in 2008, but in the future.”
Little did they know, Alabama would rise to the top of the Associated Press poll during the 2008 season, asserting itself on the college football scene and beginning a run that would be talked about for generations to come.
