This is an opinion column.

A historic 2024 ended like it began.

What’s new is old as Alabama bowed to Michigan on the final day of a year that opened with an era closing in the Rose Bowl.

The 366 days between these two meetings rewrote the history of these two historic programs — a retirement and an NFL leap reunited these two under much different circumstances.

You saw the off-brand version of last season’s Rose Bowl semifinal with a bowl sponsored by a cybersecurity firm in Tampa.

And you got the full 2024 Alabama football experience.

The whole spectrum from historically awful to flashes of elite and back to naptime told the story of Alabama’s ReliaQuest Bowl disaster.

A true belly-flop to bookend a year of transition.

If Alabama was trying to make a statement about being a playoff team, the 19-13 dud in Tampa zipped those mouths.

A third loss a double-digit favorite (16.5 points this time) came to a mediocre Michigan team that was playing without a healthy chunk of its defense. But you saw which of the two sidelines took this game seriously and it was the same one celebrating in the Rose Bowl in January.

Jalen Milroe went out with a whimper, completing half of his 32 passes for 192 yards and getting sacked five times. He missed open receivers, took too long in the pocket while doing little to improve his draft stock.

Play calling was also a mess.

So was the footwear in the traditional biblical first-quarter downpour.

A failure on every level and blame to be shared by all.

And still, a lifeless Michigan offense left the door open for a heroic ending that never came.

With four passes to win the game from the Michigan 15, four fell incomplete. None were particularly close. The Wolverine pressure was too much. Where Auburn gave him a lifetime for 4th and 31 last November, Michigan sent him scrambling on 4th and 10 to end this chapter. Flushed to his left, throwing off his back foot, what appeared to be Milroe’s final Alabama throw fell nowhere close to Rico Scott in the end zone.

Where he was stuffed in Pasadena to end last season, a lifeless chuck toward the painted grass ended this one in Tampa.

The first sub-10-win season since 2007 was a study in inconsistency so the appropriate ending fit the plot.

It spoiled a mostly solid defensive effort that held Michigan to 190 yards (to the Tide’s 260).

That defense kept Alabama from being completely washed into the Gulf in the first quarter when its offensive teammates were busy making Congress look functional.

And that’s not fair to the legislative branch.

Because this one couldn’t have started worse, the complete flip from the late September night game with Georgia. Where the Crimson Tide led 21-0 with 198 yards in the first 15 minutes that night, the Tuesday version was a nightmare.

Adjectives don’t come strong enough to properly frame the offensive burp/puke of the opening period in Tampa.

The Crimson Tide at one point had three turnovers in a four-play span.

Four in five if you count a failed fourth down on the opening drive — an ominous mauling sack of Milroe that set the tone.

A fumbled snap.

A misread turned interception.

A strip sack.

The first six possessions yielded more turnovers (three) than yards (two) in what had to have been the most embarrassing offensive exhibition in a few coaching tenures. This was a Michigan defense playing without most of its front line — with 15.0 sacks and 26.5 tackles for loss prepping for the NFL draft — but still took Milroe down five times.

The Wolverines were without the core of its run-stop defense, but Alabama managed just 68 rushing yards — 33 from running backs in 13 attempts.

No identity.

Nobody setting the tone while getting bullied by backups.

Rarely did Alabama play stakes-free bowl games in the Nick Saban era but, other than Sugar Bowl messes to end the 2008 and 2013 seasons, each sent a message.

A 49-7 depantsing of Michigan State in the Capital One Bowl to end the 2010 season.

A 35-16 beating of Michigan in the Citrus Bowl after the 2019 season.

A 45-20 example made of Kansas State in the Sugar Bowl after a 2022 playoff snub.

The first two on that list went on to win national titles the following season. The third went to the playoff.

Yet you saw none of that fire Tuesday. Even the Sugar Bowl following the Kick Six in 2013 had more life before falling 45-31 to Oklahoma.

No such statement to end Year 1 of Kalen DeBoer’s roller coaster ride in Tuscaloosa.

This was the same team that steamrolled Georgia to a 28-0 lead in Tuscaloosa. The same one that shamed LSU in Tiger Stadium.

Also the same one that traveled to Nashville and Norman with a tailwind only to be slapped around by inferior opponents.

A legacy this team will carry.

No, Alabama couldn’t play themselves into a quarterfinal with an impressive Tuesday afternoon, but it could’ve ridden a wave of momentum into a crucial offseason.

Instead, it added Michigan to the Vanderbilt and Oklahoma list.

Average teams that introduced the Crimson Tide to its new reality — delivering to Alabama what this program once did in consolation bowls.

Falling a few yards short in the Rose Bowl was disheartening.

Getting embarrassed in the Sam’s Choice Soda Pop Bowl was dispiriting.

An ominous bookend to a 2024 foretelling a future of rejoining the pack instead of leading it.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.