This is an opinion column.

To celebrate the successes, one must appreciate the journey.

Any good celebration comes with some context, and buddy, this one is drenched with it.

Because there’d be no fog of confetti Saturday night for the Alabama football team without a torrential September downpour in Tampa.

No victory formation or kneel down to finish off No. 1 Georgia without Texas doing the same less than three months earlier in Bryant-Denny Stadium.

And certainly, there’d be no early-December CFP selection committee deliberation involving the Crimson Tide without a closed-door, player–only meeting in the wake of that Texas loss and embarrassing win at South Florida.

Frankly, the whole trip still feels impossible.

From drowning in a rain delay in Tampa to planning a trip to Pasadena where No. 1 Michigan awaits in a Rose Bowl semifinal is too ridiculous even for comic-book-era Hollywood.

This screenplay took Alabama from villain to underdog and back again all in a matter of weeks and months.

Now this is a program that’s built an empire on mini-comeback stories. As Nick Saban points out only two of their six national titles came with unblemished records so clawing back from the edge of the cliff isn’t a new plot point.

This, however, was a program teetering on the fragile wall of the abyss.

The baddest bully on the block was bleeding all over the sidewalk and the buzzards were circling.

Hand up, I was among them.

The benefit of time would say I was wrong.

But I’d invite all who predicted an Alabama trip to the Rose Bowl in mid-September to … please, nobody was crazy enough for that.

Context is crucial here when considering the events leading up to September of this year. Alabama was coming off consecutive two-loss seasons — the first of which ended with a national title game loss — but there was something intangible missing since stampeding to the 2020 national championship.

That fire didn’t appear to burn at the same temperature. Fourth-quarter leads evaporated in each of the four losses in 2021. One was more un-Alabama-like than the next. Saban spoke about anxiety spooking the locker room before losing to Tennessee for the first time in some teenagers’ lives last fall. They folded again a few weeks later at LSU and, for only the second time in the nine years of the playoff, they wouldn’t be invited.

Yet, the preseason talk was brash and combative.

Alabama was going to prove the haters they hadn’t slipped.

“… I know this group. We’re going to win it all,” Alabama right tackle JC Latham said at SEC Media Days in July. “We’re going to national championship, undefeated …”

So watching the Sept. 9 showdown with Texas follow that same old story structure, the haters were back and justified.

It was a sloppy game but Jermaine Burton’s 49-yard touchdown catch with 13 seconds left in the third quarter gave the home team its first lead of the game. And the home crowd was feeling it up 16-13, considering the storm weathered.

But like Texas A&M and Georgia in 2021 and Tennessee and LSU in 2022, that comeback for a second-half lead faded. This time it was fast. Then brutal. The Longhorns scored three touchdowns before the midpoint of the fourth quarter, then rocked the Crimson Tide to sleep with a 12-play, 34-yard drive that drained the final 7 minutes and 14 seconds from the clock and Alabama’s soul.

A 34-24 home loss felt borderline disqualifying for the ultimate goal.

The column headline, Texas saved Alabama’s greatest indignity for last, pulled no punches.

“… But mostly the locals sat in stunned silence,” the closing line read, “as Texas slowly grinded Alabama into submission on a night that felt unlike any other in the Saban era.

Then came the 17-3 win over a South Florida team that was among the worst in the FBS last year. Jalen Milroe was benched as Notre Dame transfer Tyler Buchner and redshirt freshman Ty Simpson struggled to make their case. The low point had to come early in the second quarter when the Bulls led 3-0 and a Tampa gully washer of a rainstorm delayed action. Cameras caught a drenched and unamused Saban walking to the dressing room.

Is this where it ends?

The uninspiring 17-3 win over a rebuilding outpost like USF felt more like confirmation of the demise suspected a week earlier against Texas.

The column: Texas loss was bad for Alabama, South Florida win was worse.

“If this was supposed to be the angry response to a 10-point loss to Texas before opening SEC play,” I wrote, “it belly-flopped in the mid-afternoon Tampa rain puddle.”

They were still talking about not coming out to play with the right mentality after Texas humbled the powerhouse.

“And they’re supposed to be Alabama, the monster who fertilizes teams of this caliber,” that postgame column read in conclusion. “Middle Tennessee State was hardly a speedbump in a 56-7 season-opening exhibition that didn’t disprove any offseason statements from Alabama players who felt like they were wrongfully doubted for the first time in a while.

That wasn’t the case Saturday.

Not against South Florida.

And not on an afternoon that felt a generation or two removed from the night it was a Hunter Renfrow touchdown catch away from the very pinnacle of the sport.”

Just two-and-a-half months later, that generational divide was somehow bridged.

It wasn’t always pretty. The next week’s win over Ole Miss — ultimately crucial for the resumé — saw a drive starting one-yard from the end zone end in a turnover.

Texas A&M and soon-to-be-fired coach Jimbo Fisher took the Tide to the brink in a 26-20 escape job that became a defining moment for Milroe.

Arkansas nearly came from behind to stun the Tide a week later before Tennessee took a 20-7 lead before Alabama returned to its roots. Something’s been different since halftime against the Vols, when flashes of the dominant past still never got Alabama better than No. 8 in the CFP rankings straight through last Tuesday.

Of course, this whole house of cards nearly tumbled in Jordan-Hare House of Horrors. But if there were any questions about this team’s ability to grow the guts missing in previous losses, the whole 4th-and-31 touchdown is your evidence. Because that wasn’t a blind prayer of a chuck to the end zone.

The fourth-quarter fortitude displayed a week later against the new Goliath named Georgia completed the arc.

Where Alabama wilted against Texas, it attacked Georgia in what was effectively a road game.

The 27-24 win completed the 11-game sweep after the Texas loss.

So does that smear egg on our collective September-naysayer faces? Cold takes gone up in flames?

Nah. Show me the legion of believers who never wavered.

This team evolved and so did the postgame columns.

From Saturday night: Alabama’s new Atlanta legend the latest to crush Georgia’s soul

“This SEC title team was different from the others,” the dispatch from Atlanta read. “While each celebrated the win, this celebration was perhaps just a little more joyful.

Hard to blame them from where they were when Milroe was benched for the most disheartening win possible at USF.

They were left for dead only to crawl out from the gutter and end Georgia’s three-peat bid.”

So they celebrated. The corner of Alabama fans in a sea of once-barking, now pouting Dawgs echoed through the emptying Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Hard to believe even the most devoted saw this run coming.

Even the famously light celebrater Saban seemed genuinely tickled by this team’s return from the dead.

Before the season, a longtime Alabama staffer told me this Crimson Tide team was different from the last few. Where those teams liked football, this one loves the sport, he said. This locker room had a closer bond, was the word.

That conversation stuck with me even when I was ready to tag it hot air after the Texas-USF two step.

But everything he said that day seemed to bear fruit as the season’s long slog back to familiar ground took a particularly memorable route.

It’s hard not to appreciate this absurd journey when one recalls just how hopeless it once felt.

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