It’s difficult to sum up how successful Alabama football’s 2023 season was. The Crimson Tide, which fell to Michigan 27-20 in Sunday’s College Football Playoff Rose Bowl semifinal, obviously didn’t win the national championship.

But given where the year started, it doesn’t quite feel like a failure. Nick Saban said as much during his postgame press conference.

“As a coach, you’re always trying to get your team to improve and be the best that they can be, and I think this team probably improved from the South Florida game and the Texas game early in the season as much as any team I’ve ever coached,” Saban said.

“That takes a lot of hard work. A lot of people being very committed to doing things that they need to do to self-assess and improve their game, and all these players bought in on this team and did it in first-class fashion.”

The games he mentioned marked the moment when many gave up on the Tide. Alabama lost to Texas and looked even worse in a far-too-close win at South Florida.

The whispers of the dynasty being dead became a full-throated yell. But Alabama was able to tune it out.

In the locker room after the season ended, it was clear how close the group had become through the trials.

“We really came from the ground up,” linebacker Jihaad Campbell said. “Straight from the bottom and we had to dig ourselves up and let everybody know what this team was all about.”

It was a team that took criticism early on from Alabama football alums who felt it wasn’t meeting the standard. Then came SEC play, when the Tide started winning games more convincingly.

Along with it, a catchphrase, one that was easy enough for Terrion Arnold and Jalen Milroe to put on a T-shirt: LANK. Let A Naysayer Know.

Even as the wins piled up and the so-called naysayers disappeared, the team took the slogan to heart.

“Their character is so strong,” defensive lineman Justin Eboigbe said in the moments after the season ended. “Times of adversity, when things don’t go your way. It’s easy to be uplifting, be positive when things are going well but the true test of character is when things aren’t going your way.”

Alabama made it undefeated through its regular-season SEC games, capped off with a miracle finish against Auburn. A battle with Georgia in the league title game awaited.

A large part of the reason was Milroe. After struggling in the Texas loss and not playing at South Florida, he came back with a vengeance, garnering Heisman Trophy votes by the end of the season.

After the Michigan loss, he reflected on what the 2023 team meant to him.

“We have a lot of things we can be proud of from this season,” Milroe said. “Could have easily lingered and past mistakes could have easily went in the tank when things weren’t good, but the biggest thing was we continued to improve, continue to have singular focus in our approach when it came to preparation and when it came to attacking the task at hand.”

Alabama won the SEC championship, controversially earning it a spot in the College Football Playoff. It had chances to win the Rose Bowl over Michigan, but the national title hopes came to an end in overtime.

Even with the loss, the season will long remain in the minds of the Crimson Tide.

“I love this group, man, unconditionally,” Arnold said in the locker room. “This group here, I went to battle with them. I went to war with them. I put my life on the line with them and I wouldn’t want to do this with anybody else. And I mean that wholeheartedly.”