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.

Alabama wasted no one time showing the world that the 2008 season — and several seasons after that — would be different from the previous 15 or so that had come before it.

On Aug. 30, 2008, at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, the Crimson Tide smashed ninth-ranked Clemson 34-10 in the first Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic. The victory sparked a breakthrough season by the Crimson Tide, which ended up 12-2, won its first SEC West championship in nine years and posted the first of 16 consecutive double-digit-win seasons under Nick Saban.

Clemson, coming off a 9-4 finish, was a 5-point favorite that day in Atlanta. But it was Alabama — which had gone 7-6 in Saban’s debut season of 2007 — that left the Georgia Dome with all the forward momentum.

“It didn’t take two full years,” Kevin Scarbinsky wrote in the following day’s Birmingham News. “It didn’t take two full halves. It didn’t take the entire first game of Nick Saban’s second season for the Alabama football team to look and act like a Saban team.

“The coach who preaches to his players to finish watched them start the inaugural Chick-fil-A College Kickoff as if their scholarships depended on it.”

Alabama jumped out to a 23-3 halftime lead on the strength of three Leigh Tiffin field goals and two John Parker Wilson touchdowns — a 1-yard run and a 4-yard pass to tight end Nick Walker. Clemson’s C.J. Spiller returned the second-half kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown, but that proved to be the only highlight of the day for the Tigers.

Alabama put the game away with 10 more points, Wilson’s 4-yard touchdown pass to freshman sensation Julio Jones and Tiffin’s fourth field goal. In its first game under new offensive coordinator Jim McElwain, the Crimson Tide did not turn the ball over and more than doubled Clemson’s total offense output, 419 yards to 188.

“We came out with a different mindset, really,” Wilson said, “really wanting to take care of the ball. Making good decisions was the big focus today. I think we did that today, took care of the ball. We didn’t put ourselves in any bad situations, and the way our defense is running that’s all we had to do.”

Alabama’s stellar 2008 recruiting class made an immediate impact. Jones had four receptions including his touchdown, while fellow freshman Mark Ingram ran for 96 yards on 17 carries.

But it was the Crimson Tide’s largest signee who made the biggest impact. Massive 6-foot-4, 360-pound defensive tackle Terrence Cody led an Alabama defensive front that held Clemson — which returned Spiller and fellow all-star candidate James Davis in the backfield — to zero yards on 14 carries.

“Zero yards? They rushed for zero yards?” Alabama linebacker Cory Reamer said. “I guess penetration worked. Their linemen were on different levels all night so they had nothing to run behind.”

The difference in preparedness between the two teams was evident from Clemson’s first offensive series, with Alabama up 3-0. Though Spiller and Davis had combined for 1,832 yards and 13 touchdowns rushing in 2007, it was freshman Jamie Harper who got the game’s first carry for the Tigers.

Harper getting the ball on the second play of the season — following an incomplete pass on first down — was the fulfillment of a recruiting promise by Clemson coach Tommy Bowden, who had made similar agreements with Spiller and Davis. Harper promptly fumbled, and Alabama recovered to set up Tiffin’s second field goal.

“I did it for C.J., did it for James, did it for [former cornerback] Justin Miller,” Bowden told reporters the following day. “Those have been pretty productive players. You get 1,000 offensive snaps in one year. That fumble, what did they do, kick a field goal? We could’ve scored one touchdown and rectified that turnover.

“But to do that for a good player? Oh, man alive. Yeah. That fumble didn’t lose the game. That was the first drive, second play of the game. We’re down 6-0, a touchdown wins the game. Yeah, I’d do that.”

Though the victory over Clemson marked a new beginning for Alabama, it led to Bowden’s undoing. After back-to-back ACC losses to Maryland and Wake Forest dropped the Tigers to 3-3 and out of the national rankings, Bowden resigned on Oct. 13 (he was replaced by interim coach Dabo Swinney, who remains on the job today).

Alabama rolled through the remainder of the regular season, including victories at Arkansas (49-14), Georgia (41-30), Tennessee (29-9) and LSU (27-21 in overtime) and a 36-0 shellacking of Auburn in the Iron Bowl. The Crimson Tide lost the SEC championship game to Florida 31-20 and then fell flat in the Sugar Bowl vs. Utah, but the program had undeniably been set on a path toward re-assuming its place at the top of the mountain in the SEC and in college football in general.

“Coach (Saban) has been stressing that he wants us to finish games and he wants to have a dominating mentality,” Alabama safety Rashad Johnson said. “And I think everyone took that attitude when we went out on the field. That’s what we tried to display. We want to dominate our opponent, and I think we did a great job of doing that.”

Coming Monday: Our countdown to kickoff continues with No. 33, when Alabama won the first of its record 30 SEC championships.