The top-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide went into College Station as a massive favorite against the unranked Texas A&M Aggies, and they left as a shocking loser to break a 100-game winning streak against unranked opponents. Alabama hadn't lost a game against an unranked team in 14 years, the longest streak in the modern era.
The Crimson Tide had also won 19 straight games overall, and they were expected to roll through this season into another College Football Playoff. But Alabama did look vulnerable in a tight win over the Florida Gators earlier in the year, and Saturday they weren't able to escape a major challenge with a win.
Nick Saban's crew fell behind by two touchdowns at halftime, putting themselves in a big hole to climb out of. The Crimson Tide fought back to take a 38-31 lead in the fourth quarter, but the Aggies answered right back with a touchdown and then won the game with a walk-off field goal.
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After the game, Saban lamented everything that went wrong, via ESPN's Alex Scarborough:
“Hopefully we'll learn a lot from this,” he said. “We still can accomplish everything we want to accomplish, but we have to do things better than we did tonight. We have to play better, we have to be more consistent, we have to finish drives, we have to get more turnovers on defense, we have to get more stops on defense. There are a lot of things we need to fix.”
Saban also took personal responsibility for the loss, saying he needs to prepare his players better. The Alabama coach knew this was going to be a tough game at night on the road, and it certainly turned out to be just that.
The Crimson Tide aren't dead when it comes to the College Football Playoff, but losing this game means they now have zero margin for error the rest of the season.
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