EDITOR’S NOTE: Every day until Aug. 29, Creg Stephenson is counting down significant numbers in Alabama football history, both in the lead-up to the 2025 football season and in commemoration of the Crimson Tide’s first national championship 100 years ago. The number could be attached to a year, a uniform number or even a football-specific statistic. We hope you enjoy.

It technically wasn’t a question, but it elicited a great response anyway.

Alabama had just throttled Michigan State 38-0 in the Cotton Bowl College Football Playoff semifinal on Dec. 31, 2015. In the post-game locker room, Jeff Speegle of Birmingham TV station ABC 33/40 stuck a microphone in the face of defensive end Jonathan Allen — No. 93 for the Crimson Tide — and made the following statement.

“Thirty-eight to nothing,” Speegle said, “I mean, teams don’t do that in the semifinals of the College Football Playoff.”

Allen’s matter-of-fact response: “Alabama does.”

Here’s video:

Allen’s statement became emblematic of an entire era of Alabama football, a period from roughly 2009-18 during which the Crimson Tide not only almost never lost, but routinely pummeled very good opposition.

Thus, Allen — an All-American in 2015 and the SEC Defensive Player of the Year the following season — wasn’t talking trash. He was simply stating a fact.

Alabama had also won 38-10 at Georgia earlier that season and battered bowl teams Wisconsin, Arkansas, Texas A&M, LSU, Mississippi State, Auburn and Florida all by double-digits. The Crimson Tide lost a 43-37 home shootout to Ole Miss and had close calls vs. Tennessee and against Clemson in the national championship game, but otherwise was rarely challenged.

Years later, LaVar Arrington — himself an All-American at Penn State in the late 1990s — told Allen in an interview for the Up on Game Network that he considered his “Alabama Does” quote to be the “ultimate mic drop moment.”

“I’ve always had that mentality,” Allen said. “But the thing about a place like Alabama … when you go there, and you surround yourself with that many alpha males, it just helps grow your confidence.”

The Alabama defenses of Allen’s era were certainly loaded with “alpha males,” players like Jarran Reed, A’Shawn Robinson, Reggie Ragland, Minkah Fitzpatrick and Reuben Foster on the defensive side of the ball. On offense, Allen’s teammates included Derrick Henry, Kenyan Drake, ArDarius Stewart, Calvin Ridley, O.J. Howard and Jake Coker.

But Allen might have been the most alpha-maley of them all. A five-star recruit out of Virginia (part of military family, he’d actually been born in Anniston), Allen played in 13 games in a part-time role in 2013 before becoming a full-time starter as a sophomore.

Allen was a three-time All-SEC pick, and twice an All-American who finished his career with 28 sacks and 44.5 tackles for loss. In his senior year of 2016, he won every individual accolade imaginable — SEC Defensive Player of the Year, Unanimous All-American, the Lombardi, Chuck Bednarik and Ted Hendricks Awards and the Bronko Nagurski Trophy.

Alabama went 51-6 during Allen’s college career, winning three SEC championships and a national title. He was denied a second straight championship when Alabama lost 35-31 to Clemson in his final college game.

Moreover, Allen went down in history as one of Nick Saban’s favorite players.

“Jonathan Allen is a fantastic player for us, even a better person, leader,” Saban said on his radio show late in 2016. “He’s had an outstanding year this year….The guy has developed each and every year into being a better and better and better player. I think sometimes a lot of players lose sight of how football is a developmental game, how they improve, how they can improve their value by continuing to grow and develop as players in college. Jonathan Allen is a great example of that.”

Allen was a first-round pick by Washington in 2017, and twice made the Pro Bowl in eight seasons with the Commanders franchise. He signed as a free agent earlier this offseason with the Minnesota Vikings.

Nearly 10 years later, Allen’s “Alabama does” statement continues to resonate. It’s one of the more bold (yet factual) declarations in history by a Crimson Tide player, up there with Marty Lyons telling Penn State’s Chuck Fusina “you better pass” prior to fourth down during the Goal Line Stand in the 1979 Sugar Bowl and Rory Turner’s exuberant declaration “I waxed the dude” after his game-saving tackle in the 1984 Iron Bowl.

The Alabama teams during the heyday of the Nick Saban dynasty had it all — they were highly talented, they were well-coached and they had swagger. And no one embodied that more than Jonathan Allen, the ultimate Crimson Tide “alpha male.”

Coming Friday: Our countdown to kickoff continues with No. 92, a magical and totally unexpected year