Happy New Year: Alabama and Notre Dame Both Hope to Fulfill Resolutions in Rose Bowl

DALLAS — At the turn of the new year every first of January, people all over the world take the time to not only sit and reflect on the year that has just passed, but also reevaluate and find some focus and perspective heading into the next 365 days.

The time of a new year is celebrated all over the world as a time of new beginnings. Fresh friendships are forged, old habits are forgotten, and resolutions are made by the billions of individuals that currently occupy our little blue ball that we call home.

It seems trivial to transition to football at this moment, but here we go …

Maintaining focus and evaluating one’s current position is also something currently being undertaken at both the Alabama and Notre Dame football programs, both of whom square off on Friday at the Rose Bowl Game in Arlington, Texas. Alabama is coming off of a perfect 11-0 season and is poised to take home its 18th national title — the sixth under head coach Nick Saban.

As the clock struck midnight at the dawn of 2021, the Crimson Tide sat at a 19.5-point favorite over the Fighting Irish. Alabama is the only undefeated team remaining in the Power 5 conferences that played all of its games that were scheduled at the beginning of the season.

To Saban, focus amidst success is key in maintaining staying power for his team’s battle on the gridiron with the Irish on Friday afternoon in AT&T Stadium. Rather than reflecting on the Crimson Tide’s successes in a 2020 season that has brought so much unforeseen adversity, the veteran coach said that he reminds his players to stay focused on the task at hand.

In short, it’s never too early to start fulfilling New Year’s resolutions.

“When you play sports, you’re really only as good as your last game,” Saban said in his press conference on Thursday. “You’re really only as good as your last play, so we try to keep our players looking forward at the next challenge, understand what they have to do to prepare to be able to execute and play well, create value for themselves. These guys have worked hard to put themselves in this position, so you certainly want to be able to finish correctly.

“What you’ve done in the past doesn’t have anything to do with what’s going to happen in the future, so if you can remember what you did to have success in the past and continue to do that, that’s going to help you continue to have success. Success is not a continuum; it’s momentary. And it’s always based on the next moment. So that’s what we try to get our players to focus on.”

Throughout the past week, focus has been a primary talking point for both the Crimson Tide and the Irish. The discussion of perspective and evaluation of one’s stance comes fittingly at this time of year when so many others outside of the realm of sports are doing just the same.

Alabama Athletics

For Saban, outside influence from the fan base and the media has always been a personal concern. For as long as the 69-year-old coach has been in Tuscaloosa, his insistence of ignoring outside dialogue and the talking heads of both the television and radio waves has been just as important for everyone in his program as it is for himself.

In other words, Saban doesn’t bite into the ‘rat poison.’

Nor should he. In a game that is constantly evolving and any team can quickly gain the upper hand in any given moment should the other lose focus, it is now more important than ever for that thoughtful mindset and a careful evaluation of one’s opponent always be at the forefront.

Since the dawn of the College Football Playoff in 2014, the team that was ranked No. 1 in the first set of rankings issued by the selection committee has never finished the season as the national champion. In fact, with the exception of LSU in 2020, the top-ranked team heading into the title game has never won the CFP at all.

This season, Alabama was ranked No. 1 in all five weeks of the rankings. Along with that comes hype, and with that hype — according to Saban — comes internal instability due to players losing focus.

On Thursday, Saban reiterated his concerns regarding the constant barrage of outside influences that he and his players and coaches are always under.

“I think that we’re always concerned,” Saban said. “I always tell our players that they really shouldn’t listen to what people say externally and really stay focused on what you have to do internally to be able to play your best football. I think this program is built on players being accountable to do their job at a high level and to be accountable to each other, and really what other people think and say really doesn’t have anything to do with the outcome of the game.

“So we want to stay focused on the things that we have to do to get the proper outcome for our team, but with great respect for the team that we have to play. And know that we’re going to have to stay focused one play at a time and do a great job of executing to be able to have success anytime you play against a really good team. We try to keep our players from all external sort of factors out there that really don’t have any significance on the outcome of the game.”

Alabama’s list of resolutions is short, but each one is important: maintain staying power, focus amidst success and shut out the outside voices.

For the team that will be standing on the other side of the field on Friday afternoon in Jerry World, focus and internal evaluation are equally as important.

Notre Dame enters the Rose Bowl at 10-1 overall, with its only loss being its most recent game in the ACC Championship Game against Clemson. Prior to the loss, the Irish were the No. 2 team in college football, having beaten the Tigers in overtime back on Nov. 7.

To head coach Brian Kelly, the loss served as a recalibration of sorts to the process that his team lost focus on as the success during the regular season began to cause distractions.

In a sense, the loss gave his team a jump-start to writing its list of resolutions.

“You have to have a process that allows the team, the organization, everybody associated with it, to fall back on that to check their work, so to speak, from week to week in terms of how are we following our process so we’re prepared for anything that comes our way,” Kelly said on Thursday. “And so I think we do a really good job of not thinking about outcomes as much as we think about what our process is and how we do that on a day-to-day basis — how we eat, how we sleep, what decisions do we make on a day-to-day basis as it relates to going to class.

“And I think all those go to a process we have in place that our guys have done a really, really good job of following through on.”

While Saban expressed concern regarding his team’s focus, Kelly seemed confident in his team’s ability to learn from its mistakes and regain what it had lost heading into Clemson. While Alabama might be the heavy favorite with its high-powered offense with two Heisman Trophy finalists and a perfect record as SEC champions, the loss to the Tigers might have been the best thing to happen to the Irish this season.

Prior to its win over Clemson, Notre Dame gave up an average of 10.33 points per game. Following the victory, the average points gave up but the Irish skyrocketed to 23 points per game before the 34-10 loss at a neutral field in the ACC title game to the Tigers closed out the regular season on a down note.

Obviously there are more factors at play such as strength of schedule before and after the first Clemson game as well as home vs away, but the point stands. After experiencing 10 games of success, Notre Dame lost focus.

However, that focus has been regained. When asked about what his team’s mindset is heading into the Rose Bowl, a calm Kelly stated that they are all feeling the vibe that they felt heading into their first matchup with the Tigers.

“I’d say it’s much more similar to the first time we played Clemson, right?” Kelly said. “The second time, look, Clemson beat us. They were the better football team that day. There’s no doubt about it. But the mindset was different. And coming into this game, playing in the playoffs, your mindset shifts and changes to one where you know you have to play your very best. And if you don’t, you go home. That wasn’t the case the second time we played, and unfortunately it crept into the way we played. No excuses. Clemson was the better team that day.

“But, having said that, I can sense the way we’ve prepared, this team will play, our football team at Notre Dame will play with a similar mindset that they did, and they’ll need to, in the first game that we played against Clemson.”

Notre Dame’s list of resolutions is eerily similar to Alabama’s but is also slightly different: fall back on its process and regain the sense of confidence and focus it felt back on Nov. 7 heading onto the field in South Bend against Clemson.

For Crimson Tide fans, that regained sense of focus for Kelly and his team might be a cause for some concern. However, they’ve seen this rodeo before.

Back in the 2013 BCS National Championship Game, Alabama entered the matchup against Notre Dame as 10-point favorites. The Crimson Tide was touted for its stifling defense — ranked as the best in the nation in total for allowing just 246 yards per game — and solid offense. The Irish came in with Heisman finalist and Butkus Award-winning linebacker Manti Te’o, who led his defense to best in the country in least points allowed at 10.3 per game.

While on paper Alabama and Notre Dame were relatively an even match, the majority of college football fans sided with the Crimson Tide. Why?

Because of Saban and his program’s ability to remain focused. After a week of preparation, the 14-year coach of Alabama said his team is looking forward to the challenge.

Just like they did at the beginning of a new year eight seasons ago.

“Our team has had a really good week of preparation, and we’re kind of looking at this because of the sort of unusual season that we’re having even for bowl games,” Saban said on Thursday. “Just going today as if this is a normal road trip for us, but certainly not a normal game for us and something our players are excited about and really fortunate to have the opportunity to play in the College Football Playoff.”

Sounds like somebody is already checking off some New Year’s resolutions.

After a year that has caused so much adversity and struggles for so many across our beloved planet, learning from one’s mistakes and focusing on what matters most to us is now more important than it’s ever been. The same can be said for both football programs in Friday’s Rose Bowl.

For Kelly and Notre Dame, that means reflecting and readjusting the things that went wrong Dec. 19 against Clemson. For Saban and Alabama, it’s focusing on the task at hand and staying true to the cause. For both programs, it means beginning to sign off on those resolutions beginning on day one of 2021.

If both teams follow through on what they need to do and learn from what has ailed them this season, then either of the two fan bases could be in for a great start to a happy New Year.