BAMANEWSBOT
Staff
Since the start of the 2010 season, Alabama is 14-3 in SEC games at home, and the Crimson Tide is 13-3 in SEC games on the road.
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Saturday may bring the largest crowd the Ole Miss campus has ever seen and the loudest crowd Vaught-Hemingway Stadium has ever heard.
So the Rebels have that going for them, which is nice, but then there's this. No one in the SEC, maybe no one in college football, travels as well as Alabama.
By turning road games into business trips, Nick Saban and company have taken care of business better than anyone in a league that's overcrowded with the most intimidating environments in the sport.
Saturday night in Death Valley? Auburn's Jungle after dark? Texas A&M with the actual, physical structure of Kyle Field actually swaying?
Alabama has been there, done that and won there and beyond.
You can make a case that Alabama's become a better road team than home team under Saban. Throw out 2007, his one-and-only rebuilding year, and 2008 and 2009, when the Crimson Tide ran the table home and away for two straight regular seasons, and do the math.
Since the start of the 2010 season, Alabama is 14-3 in SEC games in Bryant-Denny Stadium - and it's 13-3 in SEC games in hostile stadiums. During that same time period, Alabama's enjoyed a perfect home record only once in 2013. It put together perfect road records in 2011 and 2012.
The home-field advantage tends to evaporate when the Crimson Tide is the visiting team.
Since losing 24-21 at LSU on Nov. 6, 2010, Alabama had won 12 straight true road games before it traveled to Auburn last season. To stop that streak, the Tigers had to stage a fourth-quarter comeback capped by the most amazing ending in college football history.
Alabama's longest home winning streak in that time? Its current 12-game run in Tuscaloosa.
The trip to Ole Miss will be Alabama's first true road game since the Mother of All Iron Bowls, and it'll be the first truly hostile environment faced by starting quarterback Blake Sims. He and new offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin made their debut together in the loud but friendly Georgia Dome, but they haven't tried to communicate yet in a place whose goal will be to shout them down and drown them out.
Throw in the raw emotion of a packed house in Oxford yearning to witness history, along with the best defense Alabama has faced this season, and the Crimson Tide's well-earned rep as a road warrior - which took a hit last Nov. 30 in Auburn - will be tested again.
Alabama's lost consecutive road games only once under Saban, at Mississippi State and at Auburn in 2007, his first season in Tuscaloosa. That happened before he built up the talent to handle tough opponents and the temperament to deal with tough environments.
Good teams win at home. Great teams get it done on the road, too. Now's the time and Oxford is the place for this Alabama team to take the next step from good to great.
Continue reading...
—————
Saturday may bring the largest crowd the Ole Miss campus has ever seen and the loudest crowd Vaught-Hemingway Stadium has ever heard.
So the Rebels have that going for them, which is nice, but then there's this. No one in the SEC, maybe no one in college football, travels as well as Alabama.
By turning road games into business trips, Nick Saban and company have taken care of business better than anyone in a league that's overcrowded with the most intimidating environments in the sport.
Saturday night in Death Valley? Auburn's Jungle after dark? Texas A&M with the actual, physical structure of Kyle Field actually swaying?
Alabama has been there, done that and won there and beyond.
You can make a case that Alabama's become a better road team than home team under Saban. Throw out 2007, his one-and-only rebuilding year, and 2008 and 2009, when the Crimson Tide ran the table home and away for two straight regular seasons, and do the math.
Since the start of the 2010 season, Alabama is 14-3 in SEC games in Bryant-Denny Stadium - and it's 13-3 in SEC games in hostile stadiums. During that same time period, Alabama's enjoyed a perfect home record only once in 2013. It put together perfect road records in 2011 and 2012.
The home-field advantage tends to evaporate when the Crimson Tide is the visiting team.
Since losing 24-21 at LSU on Nov. 6, 2010, Alabama had won 12 straight true road games before it traveled to Auburn last season. To stop that streak, the Tigers had to stage a fourth-quarter comeback capped by the most amazing ending in college football history.
Alabama's longest home winning streak in that time? Its current 12-game run in Tuscaloosa.
The trip to Ole Miss will be Alabama's first true road game since the Mother of All Iron Bowls, and it'll be the first truly hostile environment faced by starting quarterback Blake Sims. He and new offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin made their debut together in the loud but friendly Georgia Dome, but they haven't tried to communicate yet in a place whose goal will be to shout them down and drown them out.
Throw in the raw emotion of a packed house in Oxford yearning to witness history, along with the best defense Alabama has faced this season, and the Crimson Tide's well-earned rep as a road warrior - which took a hit last Nov. 30 in Auburn - will be tested again.
Alabama's lost consecutive road games only once under Saban, at Mississippi State and at Auburn in 2007, his first season in Tuscaloosa. That happened before he built up the talent to handle tough opponents and the temperament to deal with tough environments.
Good teams win at home. Great teams get it done on the road, too. Now's the time and Oxford is the place for this Alabama team to take the next step from good to great.
Continue reading...
