Nick Saban Reveals One Overlooked Key In Alabama’s Rose Bowl Loss To Michigan

Getty Image

The 2024 Rose Bowl between the Alabama Crimson Tide and Michigan Wolverines will go down in history as an all-time great College Football Playoff semifinal.

The game featured several momentum swings and ultimately came down to a controversial final play that had fans questioning legendary Bama coach Nick Saban.

But Saban says there’s one element of the game that went overlooked and may well have proved the determining the factor between the two teams.

“One of the things that was a big difference in this game, which nobody ever talks about, and it’s a very simple thing…is we’re in no-huddle,” Saban said on Thursday’s edition of the Pat McAfee Show. “And when you play a no-huddle team, and you’re not going fast – which we didn’t go fast enough – then their signal caller is basically making calls to defend the formation and the alignment that you’re in.

“They’re the only team we played all season that got in a huddle. It used to be every team is in a huddle. So we’re playing our first game of the season where we’re playing a team that’s in a huddle. So you don’t have the advantage of seeing those formations until they come out of the huddle, so you’ve got to make calls, and that’s changed a lot in football.”

Coincidentally, Saban contradicted an older take of his.

He joined ESPN’s ManningCast two years ago for a game between the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles. During that appearance, he asked why anyone would ever huddle.

Philadelphia came out the next play, after huddling, and immediately scored a touchdown.

So clearly something changed along the way.

Saban himself may not believe huddling is the best way to go. But it’s clear he believes that doing so provided Michigan a small advantage. And in a game of inches, that small advantage could well have played the difference between winning and losing.