This is an opinion column.

The rain stopped. The questions kept pouring down.

The skies cleared. The big picture remained cloudier than ever.

The Alabama football team did not lose the game Saturday, despite its worst efforts, but the program that’s authored the longest run of sustained excellence in the sport’s history clearly has lost something.

Its edge. Its aura. Its swagger. Its decade-plus status as the most feared collection of four-star and five-star talent on the planet led by the man who supplanted the home stadium’s namesake as the consensus best coach there ever was.

Who’s afraid of the Crimson Tide now?