AP photo by Rob Carr Georgia players celebrate their 26-23 overtime win over Alabama in Tuscaloosa on Saturday night.

Alabama getting most out of its talent

TUSCALOOSA — Three weeks ago when doing a story on fan reaction to the first game of Nick Saban’s reign in Tuscaloosa, I received a little lesson in Alabama football 101.

When I was talking to Al Garner, a 42-year-old Birmingham native who has been a season ticket hold since 10th grade, he mentioned to me, “If you are a true Alabama fan, you don’t expect them to go 12-0.”

That won’t happen now, with the heartbreaking 26-23 loss toNo. 22 Georgia.

It’s a tough loss against a nationally-ranked team, but it’s interesting that before this game, the national perception was that Alabama fans thought their team could win the national title.

Saturday morning on ESPN, one of the hosts said the excitement and hype around this year’s Crimson Tide is greater than it was in 1992, the year Alabama won the national championship.

Now, I’m not an Alabama historian, but that just seems hard to believe.

This team has been in the midst of a nice start, even with the loss, and surely Alabama supporters realize that.

TheTide showed some mettle in coming back against Arkansas last week. It out-muscled Vanderbilt on the road the previous week, and against Western Carolina in the opener, the Crimson Tide did what it was supposed to do.

The fans might be excited, but it’s tough to believe that they thought a national championship was in their crosshairs.

Before the season, Saban tried to lower expectations so that those who support the program wouldn’t expect the ultimate prize just yet.

This is what he said at SEC media days:

“We had a 6-7 team last year. You know who’s coming back. You know what starters. We’re going to win with people, and our ability to develop those people to their full potential.”

So far, Saban has gotten as much out of those players as possible. And that is the main fact that some are missing week in and week out.

This Alabama team had a losing season last year.

You can chalk it up to bad coaching, losing a lot of good players on defense, or whatever other explanation you can come up with.

The 2007 squad has a lot of good players, but it doesn’t have any superstars on either side of the ball. Maybe SEC rushing leader Terry Grant — a redshirt freshman — has real star quality, as does left tackle Andre Smith.

However, that is what makes this Alabama team so appealing. The Tide is doing the unexpected, and a lot of players who are contributing are those
who weren’t on our radar last year.

Linebacker Darren Mustin has been the team’s most consistent player on defense, and he was a walk-on last year. Grant was a top recruit out of Mississippi, but Jimmy Johns was expected to take over the lead running back role.

Where did Matt Caddell and Mike McCoy come from? And Mike Johnson has stabilized the right tackle position.

In a lot of ways, this group is using the little-team-that-could approach. And Saban most likely is using that to motivate his players. In some ways, he probably is using it to motivate himself.

When speaking publicly, Saban goes over his team’s flaws more than its successes, probably to prevent himself from thinking how good they are.

And this is probably what is feeding the fan frenzy. This team has shown it can overachieve, and that’s driving this fervor.

Imagine your parents want to buy you a new car. And you’re expecting a Toyota Corolla. But when they unveil the car, it’s a Maserati.

Saban isn’t a miracle worker, but as long as Alabama is giving some hope, fans at least will hold on and enjoy the ride.