The ability to understand the basis of this piece is purely age dependent.  In other words, some of you younger fans will not be able to identify with its premise.

Those of us that have experienced Alabama football from Coach Bryant’s days up until now?  Well, we’ll be able to look back and share memories.

I’ll try to make a concession and use something we all can identify with—the days of Coach Stallings.

I want you to try to put yourself in this situation.  It’s going to take you exercising your imagination and forgetting what some of the games were like in recent years.

For this piece, I’ll take one game in particular.

The year was 1994.

It was the second week of November and Alabama was in Starkville, MS, facing the Bulldogs.

Now, this wasn’t the same Bulldog team you have seen over the last few years.  Mississippi State had created a bit of a stir in 1994 with wins over Tennessee and Arkansas not to mention having an SEC record of 4-2 when the two teams met.

Alabama, on the other hand, was undefeated with the fan base looking ahead to meeting Florida, again, in the Southeastern conference championship game.

The Tide was down several times in the game.

Mississippi State came out strong in the game and established an early 14-3 lead.

But, Bama answered.

Mississippi State jumped out again to a 25-15 lead again.

But, Bama answered and in the end won 29 – 25 taking Jay Barker’s all time record to 33-1-1.

There are two story lines to this game.  One, the mentality of the Alabama team and two, the mentality of the Bulldog sqaud.

Alabama had faced adversity, and responded time after time in those years.  A team would score, and the Tide would have an answer.

It’s not unlike the times we are living in now, or Saturday for the latest example, and how the Tide reacts.

Saturday, when Arkansas scored their lone touchdown of the day the Tide immediately answered with one of their  own.

But, it’s the second part I want to focus on here.  It’s what was going on with Mississippi State.

As I watched that game draw to a close in Starkville, despite their efforts the Bulldogs knew this was going to be a repeat of what had happened the last 13 years in a row—in the end, Bama would prevail.

It was just that type of thought process that made teams concede defeat  before even stepping on the field.  There was a mystique around the Alabama team at home and at away games.

No matter what, in the end, Alabama would likely win.  That mentality was carried into contests by opponents.  It was a resignation before the kickoff.

Today, I’m reminded of those days gone by.  And, I can thank Bobby Petrino and his post-game comments for bringing back those memories.

Petrino, while speaking to the media after his team lost to Alabama Saturday, commented,

“I am disappointed in our performance.  Alabama is a good football team and they do a lot of real good things.  They’ve got good players and they’re very, very well coached, but I am disappointed in the way we played and in our execution.  Really where that shows up is that we didn’t really believe that we could come in and win the game. When you don’t believe you can come in and win the game you drop passes, you don’t do the things you’ve been coached to do, you don’t do the things you normally do and you don’t set your feet and throw the ball with conviction.

When I heard that, I immediately went back to some of the things Saban said when he was hired.  His goal with the team was to put together such a strong, physical bunch that teams would want to quit during our games.  We saw it last season with games against Clemson, Georgia and there isn’t a better example that the 36-0 drubbing of Auburn to cap off the undefeated regular season in 2008.

Now, as we enter our SEC schedule in Saban’s third year, we have a coach admitting his team “didn’t believe they could win” before the game started.

It was a resignation, an admission of defeat before the ball was even kicked off to start the contest.

Unless you are an Alabama fan who has experienced times like those in the early to mid ’90’s I don’t think any description I could muster would do justice to what those days were like.

But, as I see how the program is progressing and personally witness the mentality now found with the Tide I have high hopes for the Bama fans who wonder what those days were like.

Highlights:  1994 – Alabama vs Mississippi State