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Alabama's best played game in the Nick Saban era?

PA Tide Fan said:
I'll give another vote for the 2013 NCG against ND as well. Certainly the 2012 NCG with LSU was the best defensive performance in the Saban era holding LSU to under 100 yards of total offense. To my knowledge that was the only time that happened in a NCG. Scoring 52 on Ohio State in the 2021 NCG was certainly a fine offensive performance, but going back to 2013 Alabama and Notre Dame were ranked #1 and #2 in scoring defense that season and we scored 42 on them and the game was 35-0 late in the 3rd quarter before ND finally scored so I'd say that was the game both offense and defense were outstanding.
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Yes but remember that Ohio State offense was supposed to be a best-of-all-time candidate and was supposedly unstoppable.

The talking heads were asking if there was any way Bama could keep up, especially after they destroyed Clempson in the semis...
 
westide said:
Yes, Bama totally destroyed Mich. St. 49-7. It seemed like they took out their frustration for two close losses and the debacle of the So. Carolina game on the poor Spartans. By the end of the game I think Mich. St. was down to their 3rd or 4th QB.
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I think there were two things going on in that game, both playing into our hands.

First, as you note, our team was frustrated with the three losses and hungry to prove how good they really were. They were also healthy for the first time all year.

On the MSU side, they didn't want to be there. They got jobbed out of the Rose Bowl by some weird B1G tie-breaker. Somethng like a three-way tie with each team having one conference loss. Penn State ended up going to Pasadena over MSU even though MSU had beaten them head-to-head in the regular season. So I have no doubt that MSU's collective psyche was somewhere else.

Three plays stood out to me:
1. MSU got first and goal. Then, after a series of sacks, penalties and miscues, ended up punting on 4th down. Before or since, I've never seen a team punt on 4th and goal.

2. We ran a reverse and Greg McElroy ended up leading blocking. About 30 yards down the left sideline he absolutely destroyed an MSU defender. Best most physical downfield block I've ever seen by a QB. He was flexing after the play, and I was worried he'd get an unsportsmanlike penalty. But that didn't happen.

3. We were way up and it was late in the game. In recognition of Saban's and D'Antonio's friendship, we were calling just simple handoffs up the middle trying to run out the clock. Eddie Lacy broke one straight up the gut for a 60 +/- yard TD...untouched as I recall. Saban threw up his hands and someone on TF found an MSU board grousing that all the MSU defense did was wave their purses at Lacy.

Yeah, that game didn't really mean much. But we did play just about perfectly.
 
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selmaborntidefan said:
The nominees:
2008 vs Georgia (blackout game)
2009 SECCG vs Florida
2012 BCSNCG vs LSU
2015 vs Georgia (post-Ole Miss hangover)
2015 vs LSU
2015 CFP vs Michigan St
2021 SECCG vs Georgia

My vote is undecided but between the 2012 LSU national title game and the 2021 UGA game.
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2008 Blackout Game
 
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