Dallas Turner will be remembered for this game.

He’ll go to the NFL next year, and he’ll drop quarterbacks there, too, but in Alabama, where fourth-quarter defenses built the Walk of Champions, and where fourth-quarter stops are memorialized on paintings, Turner will be linked to Alabama’s 42-28 victory against LSU for the rest of his life. That’s how it goes at the University Alabama, and that’s what makes this place different.

Lifelong Alabama fans will take a defensive stop to win a game over a touchdown every time. On Saturday night against LSU, with the season on the line, Turner placed his name among so many stars before him after not one but two devastating, game-altering plays against an opposing quarterback who before those moments couldn’t be stopped.

And the flashes of destruction — like a knockout combination by a heavyweight fighter — came on back-to-back plays to begin the fourth quarter. It’s like Turner, the strong-side linebacker for the forgotten Tide, wanted to remind everyone what real Alabama football was all about.

Turner’s pass deflection on the first play of the fourth quarter led to an interception and Alabama’s 42-28 lead, and then on the very next play for LSU’s offense, Turner crashed through the Tigers’ offensive line and sacked LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels so violently that the hit knocked Daniels out of the game. The hit rattled my bones all the way up in the press box.

At Alabama, that’s the stuff of legends.

At LSU, that’s been life without Nick Saban for more years than anyone cares to count.

At the twilight of it all for the iconic SEC West, it felt like a piece of shimmering art by painter Daniel A. Moore. And, after everything we’ve seen this season, somehow, someway it looks like it’s going to be Alabama.

This is beginning to feel like Alabama coach Nick Saban’s team of destiny, and it’s impossible to dismiss the Crimson Tide any longer. They were written off in September, but Alabama didn’t go away. Nope. This team just went to work.

Think back to the Texas game. People forget.

Alabama was so bad that the only thing everyone saw was the beginning of the end. Painful stuff. Was the dynasty over? That was the question, and then it became a search for exactly when and how it all went so wrong. Camelot was crumbling and everyone wanted a souvenir of the ruins.

Texas embarrassed Alabama, scoring 21 points in the fourth quarter inside Bryant-Denny Stadium. The only thing worse than that is getting shown up by a team with Matthew McConaughey on the opposing sideline dressed up like some kind of football cowboy.

Who’s better now, though, Alabama or Texas? LSU was supposed to have one of the best offenses in the country coming into this game. Coach Brian Kelly’s team was shutout in the final frame.

Alabama’s defense did a lot of searching after that loss to the Longhorns. They found an important truth. Sometimes the only way to get better is to lose.

“Where we were Week 2 and to now, I feel like we’ve been learning,” Alabama defensive lineman Justin Eboigbe said. “We’re not going to beat every team every year. It feels great to right the wrongs.”

Those are wise words that winning just can’t teach. That’s life. That’s football at Alabama in 2023. Texas kneeled out the game in Week 2, but it was Alabama celebrating in style to close out Week 10.

Saban said this was “probably as close to a complete game as we’ve played all year,” but it will take more to finish this thing. Saban knows, but so do these players.

“This team has created an opportunity where now they have to make a choice,” Saban said. “Make a choice about taking care of business because we can create an opportunity for us, win the West, get into the SEC championship game and then who knows what happens from there?”

Saban feels it. This team is turning into something special. The way college football is rigged these days, offenses usually make all the headlines. Not this time. This is throwback stuff for Alabama we’re seeing, and it reminds everyone old enough to remember what real Alabama football is all about.

Before we look too far ahead, though, let’s go back to before it all started. Here’s a peak behind the scenes of a team realizing its potential.

I was watching Alabama’s defense warmup before the game and something important caught my attention. It was Alabama defensive coordinator Kevin Steele. He was hovering around Alabama’s pass rushers during pregame warmups like a first-year position coach. What was he doing? He was so animated. After a few seconds, Steele’s message became clear.

After every drill, Steele would approach a player and point to his eyes. Stay alert, Steele was saying. Again and again, one pregame drill after another, Steele reminded his edge defenders to be aware of LSU’s quarterback.

“Know where the ball is,” Eboigbe would say after the game, and that was the same exact message during the defensive huddle before the fourth quarter.

I’m pointing out this moment among thousands for a specific reason. The quarterbacking ability of LSU’s Daniels was on everyone’s mind from the beginning, and Alabama’s defensive coordinator made every possible attempt to stop it. He was even down on the field before the game pointing to his eyes after every rep of every warmup drill.

None of it seemed to matter until those two plays by Turner on a Saturday night in Bryant-Denny Stadium that people live to experience.

That was the real Alabama football, and it’s something we haven’t seen in quite a while.

Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of “We Want Bama”, a book about togetherness, wild times and rum. You can find him on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr.