@thesportsontap: In 2007 Nick Saban pulled into a service station in Alabama to fill up his car. He was wearing the national championship ring he won at LSU in 2003. The guy behind the counter asked what it was. Saban told him, and added that they were going to do the same thing at Alabama. Here is what the man said back. "Not as long as Nick Saban is the coach here." He was saying this to Nick Saban. The man did not recognize him. He had been on the job less than a year. To understand why anybody in Alabama felt that way, remember two things. Alabama had not won a national championship since 1992. Fifteen years. In that state, that is a very long time. And then there was that fall. Saban had been hired that January out of the Miami Dolphins. On November 17, Louisiana-Monroe came to Bryant Denny Stadium and beat Alabama 21 to 14. Saban has called it the most humiliating loss of his career. One week later Alabama lost the Iron Bowl to Auburn 17 to 10. That was the sixth year in a row Auburn had beaten them. So that is the state of things when a stranger at a gas register tells the new coach, to his face, that it is never happening with that guy in charge. Now here is the rest of it. The next season Alabama won its first twelve games. Two years after that conversation, Alabama won the national championship. Then they won it again in 2011. And 2012. And 2015. And 2017. And 2020. Six national championships at Alabama. Add the one on the ring he was wearing at the gas station and it is seven, the most anybody has ever won in college football. He stayed 17 seasons and retired in January of 2024 at 72 years old. And somewhere in Alabama there is a man who once stood behind a counter, looked a stranger in the eye, and told him Alabama was never winning a title as long as Nick Saban ran the program. He was right about exactly one thing. He was talking to the right guy. #cfb #CollegeFootball #cfbnews #alabama #alabamafootball

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Friday 09 October 2026 18:15:29 GMT