An Alabama football loss under any circumstances is a noteworthy occasion. Nick Saban's Crimson Tide had lost only seven times in the past seven years heading into Saturday night's game against Jimbo Fisher's Texas A&M Aggies and hadn't tasted defeat at all since a November 2019 loss at Auburn.
Saturday's 41-38 defeat in College Station was even more rare. It was Saban's first loss to a former assistant, and it was Bama's first loss to an unranked opponent since 2007, Saban's first year in charge. A&M had begun the year fifth in the polls, but back-to-back losses to Arkansas and Mississippi State knocked the Aggies to "others receiving votes" status. Thanks to a stunning performance from A&M quarterback Zach Calzada and a wobbly 28-yard game winner from kicker Seth Small, A&M took down mighty Bama all the same.
This was the first time since 2008 that a No. 1 team lost to an unranked foe as a favorite of 15 or more points. It happened four times in the first five years of the 1980s but had happened only six times since. To get a feel for what might happen to both A&M and Bama moving forward, let's take a walk through history and see how things played out in those previous 10 instances.
1980: Mississippi State (+17.5) 6, No. 1 Alabama 3
Bear Bryant's 7-0 Crimson Tide had won 28 straight games and 40 of their last 41. They had won 22 straight over Mississippi State, the last four by an average of 22 points.
The largest crowd to ever attend a sporting event in Mississippi watched the inventor of the Wishbone (new MSU coach Emory Bellard) flummox the most dominant team of the day. Bama gained only 180 total yards but still had a chance to win at the end before a late goal line fumble.
What happened next? MSU beat LSU and Ole Miss, then lost to No. 8 Nebraska in the Sun Bowl. Alabama won three of its last four, but the same offensive issues popped up in a 7-0 loss to No. 6 Notre Dame in Birmingham, and the Tide finished 10-2.
1981: Wisconsin (+19) 21, No. 1 Michigan 14
Michigan ended 1980 on a nine-game winning streak and entered 1981 as the preseason No. 1 team. Wisconsin tamped the hype down immediately. In front of a raucous Camp Randall crowd, the Badgers outgained the Wolverines by 210 yards, picked off three passes and took the lead for good on a 71-yard pass from Jess Cole to running back John Williams. It was Wisconsin's first win over Michigan since 1962.
What happened next? Order was quickly restored. Wisconsin fell by 18 points to No. 9 UCLA the next week, while an angry Michigan pummeled top-ranked Notre Dame 25-7. Still, the Badgers went 7-5 and bowled for the first time in 19 years, and the Wolverines fell to both Iowa and an unranked Ohio State at home to finish a disappointing 9-3.
1981: Arizona (+21.5) 13, No. 1 USC 10
After Michigan and Notre Dame both fumbled the No. 1 ranking, John Robinson's USC Trojans picked up the mantle, and following a win over No. 2 Oklahoma they were showing minimal signs of vulnerability when Larry Smith's Wildcats came to town.
Marcus Allen's 74-yard touchdown gave USC a 10-0 first-quarter lead -- and bolstered his fifth straight 200-yard rushing game -- but Tom Tunnicliffe threw for 293 yards, and a touchdown pass to Vance Johnson gave the Wildcats a 13-10 lead late in the third quarter. Incredibly, it held up.
What happened next? Arizona won three of its next four before stumbling to two late losses. The Trojans won four straight to climb back to third in the polls, but the offense vanished in losses to Washington (13-3) and Penn State (26-10).
1984: Syracuse (+24) 17, No. 1 Nebraska 9
After blowing the 1983 national title with a loss to Miami in the Orange Bowl, Tom Osborne's Huskers began 1984 in vengeance mode, winning their first three games by a combined 122-17. Syracuse, meanwhile, was coming off a humbling 19-0 loss to Rutgers. Hence the 24-point spread.
The Huskers went up 7-0 midway through the first quarter, but it was all Syracuse from there. The Orange held the Huskers to 214 total yards, scored two touchdowns in the second half and pulled off an absolute shocker.
What happened next? The humbled Huskers won six in a row and returned to No. 1, just in time to get shut down again in a 17-7 loss to No. 6 Oklahoma. Syracuse, meanwhile, battled a massive hangover, scoring just 13 combined points in an ensuing three-game losing streak and finished 6-5.
1988: Washington State (+19.5) 34, No. 1 UCLA 30
When Notre Dame beat top-ranked Miami in 1988's famed "Catholics vs. Convicts" game, it didn't actually move Lou Holtz's Fighting Irish to No. 1. Those honors instead went to Troy Aikman and the high-flying UCLA Bruins ... for two weeks, at least.
UCLA had already taken down No. 2 Nebraska and looked poised to cruise past 3-3 Wazzu in Pasadena. The Bruins took a 27-6 lead into halftime but completely collapsed thereafter. The Cougars went on a 28-3 run, then forced four straight Aikman incompletions from the WSU 6-yard line in the final minute to seal the upset.
What happened next? Dennis Erickson's Cougs finished a 9-3 season with five straight wins, including a victory over a prolific Houston team in the Aloha Bowl. UCLA won three of four to finish sixth in the polls, but a 31-22 loss to USC cost them a conference title.
1990: Stanford (+17.5) 36, No. 1 Notre Dame 31
Dennis Green's Cardinal had lost three of four when top-ranked Notre Dame came to town. The Irish were well on their way to living up to their preseason No. 1 ranking, having already disposed of No. 4 Michigan and No. 24 Michigan State.
Notre Dame outgained Stanford 433-343 and led by nine late in the third quarter, but three muffed punts -- two by Ricky Watters, one by Adrian Jarrell, both filling in for an injured Rocket Ismail -- kept the door open, and Stanford clinched an upset with a 1-yard plunge by Tommy Vardell with 36 seconds left.
What happened next? The Cardinal reverted to form, losing three in a row before charging back to finish 5-6. The Irish jumped back to No. 1 with five straight wins, but they fell to Penn State at home, then lost by one to Colorado in the Orange Bowl.
1998: Michigan State (+27) 28, No. 1 Ohio State 24
John Cooper's Buckeyes were poised to finally break through, starting 1998 at No. 1 and beating three ranked teams on the way to an 8-0 start. MSU, led by an up-and-comer named Nick Saban, was 4-4.
The Buckeyes' offense scored 17 points on its first four possessions, and Damon Moore's 73-yard pick-six gave them a 24-9 lead early in the third quarter. But the Spartans went on a 19-0 binge over seven quick minutes and made stop after stop down the stretch. Renaldo Hill iced the earth-shattering upset with a pick with 1:10 left.
What happened next? The hungover Spartans lost to Drew Brees and Purdue the next week on the way to a disappointing 6-6 finish, while Ohio State won three straight games by 56 combined points. But this wasn't the playoff era -- they finished third in the BCS standings and watched Tennessee and FSU play for the national title.
2001: Auburn (+23) 23, No. 1 Florida 20
Florida beat six ranked teams by an average of 45-13 and was almost certainly the only team that could hang with a legendary Miami squad. But we were deprived of this national title matchup in part because of a meltdown on the Plains. UF's Rex Grossman threw for 364 yards but also four interceptions; the Tigers took a fourth-quarter lead off a botched punt snap, and with 10 seconds left, Damon Duval hooked a 44-yard field goal between the uprights despite crosswinds and driving rain.
What happened next? Once again, the world righted itself. A young Auburn team lost four of five games (five of six vs. the spread) to finish 7-5, while Florida rampaged through four wins to get back to No. 2 in the polls. But another stunning loss -- 34-32 vs. Tennessee in a game rescheduled because of 9/11 -- took the Gators out of the title race.
2007: Illinois (+15) 28, No. 1 Ohio State 21
Despite rampant chaos in 2007, it seemed Jim Tressel's Buckeyes were above the fray. They were 10-0, they had won 20 straight Big Ten games, and they were an easy No. 1 in the country. Illinois was a better-than-usual 7-3, but there was no reason to expect a game.
Nobody told the Illini that. They rushed for 260 yards, and four of Juice Williams' 12 completions went for touchdowns, including a 31-yarder to Marques Wilkins that put them up 14 in the third quarter. Ohio State cut the lead to seven, but Marcus Thomas picked off Todd Boeckman with 8:09 left, and Illinois incredibly ran out the clock from there.
What happened next? Both teams went 1-1, both straight up and against the spread. Illinois cruised past Northwestern before getting rocked by USC in the Rose Bowl. Ohio State shut down Michigan but fell by 14 points to LSU in the BCS Championship Game.
2008: Oregon State (+25) 27, No. 1 USC 21
Long live the Rodgers brothers.
On a Thursday night in Corvallis, Oregon State stared down a dominant USC team -- one that had just beaten Ohio State 35-3 -- with a combined 252 rushing and receiving yards, plus four touchdowns, from Jacquizz and James Rodgers. The Beavers stormed to a 21-0 halftime lead over the shellshocked Trojans, and after USC cut the lead to seven, Greg Laybourn picked off Mark Sanchez with 2:43 left, setting up a short Jacquizz score and clinching a historic upset.
What happened next? As with Wazzu in 1988, this prompted a surge from Oregon State. After an 0-2 start, the Beavers finished 9-4 and beat the spread seven of nine times after the win over USC. USC, meanwhile, picked up where it left off, winning its final 10 games (5-4-1 ATS) but missing out on a national title shot because of equally elite Florida and Oklahoma (and Texas!) teams.
2021: Texas A&M (+18.5) 41, No. 1 Alabama 38
What happens next? Obviously looking at 10 games and their aftermath isn't the most rigorous scientific study, so nothing conclusive should be reached from this. But there are a couple of interesting notes and trends stemming from the above games.
1. This is rarely a fix-all for the winning team. The 10 unranked winners here were a combined 31-20 before the win (.608) and went 32-25 afterward (.561). They went a combined 6-4 against the spread the next week but finished 28-26 ATS (52%) after the big win.
2. While some of the losses were pretty fluky and turnover-driven, they did seem to expose lasting flaws in most of the No. 1s. They were a combined 49-0 before the loss (which makes sense; they were No. 1, after all), but they went 52-11 afterward, with only two (1998 Ohio State and 2008 USC) winning out. They did tend to respond to the loss with vigor -- they went a combined 10-0 in the game following the loss, and seven of them covered -- but the glitches that befell some of these teams would usually bite them again later on.
Alabama is an awesome team and should play like it moving forward, though it will be interesting to see which opponents can damage the Tide's defense like A&M did. Meanwhile, A&M is still the team that lost to Mississippi State two weeks ago. If Calzada were to continue playing at a damn-near Heisman level, as he suddenly did on Saturday night, it would buck a pretty strong regression-to-the-mean trend here.