ATLANTA

This is along the lines of what Alabama wanted Jan. 4, 2007, when Crimson Tide athletics director Mal Moore introduced Nick Saban as the football team's new coach.

Alabama 32, Florida 13.

The Crimson Tide has won a Southeastern Conference championship, its first since beating the same opponent on the same Georgia Dome field 10 years and two days ago.

On Saturday, Alabama took the Gators, their No. 1-ranking, their 22-game win streak, their Golden Boy quarterback and their two national championship rings in the past three years and grinded it all into the Georgia Dome turf.

About an hour after Saturday's SEC Championship game ended, about a half-dozen Georgia Dome workers went over the artificial turf with heavy-bristle brooms and buckets of water and cleaning solution. Maybe they were trying to clean up what was left of Florida. Alabama didn't leave much behind.

Crimson Tide quarterback Greg McElroy said afterward that he expected a boxing match, and he and his teammates got one - they spent the evening mostly beating the tar out of the Gators.

This was no fluke. All college football dynasties end sooner rather than later, and Florida's ended with a thud Saturday as the Gators were dominated by a better Alabama team.

The journey isn't over by far. Alabama will play in the BCS National Championship Game on Jan. 7 in Pasadena, Calif., and here's guessing that the Crimson Tide will be favored in that game. I wouldn't want to bet against Alabama winning the 13th national title in school history.

It took only three years to get to this point.

Perhaps this shouldn't be a surprise. Heck, Gene Stallings only needed three years to win a national title at Alabama, which came in 1992. Wallace Wade needed only three years, too, before winning one in 1925.

Bear Bryant and Frank Thomas lagged way, way behind, needing four years to win their first national crowns.

And Saban still needs to win one more game for his official crimson coronation at No. 1.

But even Bryant, who came to Alabama when it had won only four games in three years, didn't face the unique challenge that Saban apparently has conquered.

So many people laughed at Alabama, which pursued and hired Saban, a failed NFL coach, and threw an unbelievably desperate eight-year, $32 million guaranteed contract at him.

Across the country, Alabama remained the butt of jokes for a decade that included NCAA sanctions, two sex scandals involving two Tide head coaches and plenty of losses - more than enough embarrassing losses for a once-proud program.

So many people mocked Alabama for thinking that Saban would resurrect the Tide.

The day Moore announced Saban's hiring, the new coach spoke about winning championships. In his first news conference in Tuscaloosa, he used the words "champion" and "championships" 16 times.

"I think everybody should take the attitude that we're working to be a champion, that we want to be a champion in everything that we do," Saban said that day. "Every choice, every decision, everything that we do every day, we want to be a champion."

He added he wanted Alabama "to work every day to dominate your opponent."

The nation roared that the Crimson Tide were living in the past. They couldn't even beat their biggest rivals, the Auburn Tigers, much less dominate them or the nation's best teams.

But Saban and his team won. And won. And kept winning. Now, with one more victory, Alabama will have a national title.

Even if Bama falls in Pasadena, Saban and his team will return - probably sooner rather than later.

These days, not so many people are laughing, especially not Florida and especially not the Golden Boy quarterback, Tim Tebow. He spent the final seconds of Saturday's game sitting on the Florida bench sobbing as teammate Mike Pouncey draped a comforting arm around his shoulders.

Mark Edwards is sports editor of the Decatur Daily.