Publication Date: 07-29-2025

Nothing But a Winner: The Alabama Football Story (2025) review

Dir. Jimmy Jenkins

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★

The regionality and parochial nature of college football essentially demands you be interested in a school that isn’t your own, or even one with which you have no connection. If you want to embrace the sport, you must get used to seeing southern schools like Georgia, Clemson, LSU, and of course, Alabama dominate the game while hoping your college, if not one of the couple Big Ten athletic powerhouses, qualifies for the Slim Jim Bowl or something comparable. Since moving to Iowa, I’ve adopted the Hawkeyes as my team. They charm me because they’re like my Chicago Bears; they still can’t figure out offense.

Thankfully, sports history fascinates me, so I was primed to watch Nothing But a Winner: The Alabama Football Story. Here’s a documentary that gives context into the Alabama Crimson Tide football program and its unprecedented decades of dominance by examining the coaching practices of two legends: the late Paul “Bear” Bryant and the recently retired Nick Saban. Bryant and Saban took the Crimson Tide to dynastic levels in two separate eras, combining for 13 national championships over 42 (non-consecutive) seasons.

It’s at the point where if Bama fans consider seasons in which they don’t win the national championship a complete failure. Go ask new Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer how Crimson Tide fans reacted when his team blew a game against Vanderbilt last year.

Bryant and Saban’s separate-but-similar-reigns over the Crimson Tide football program are contextualized by players who were coached by both men. Director Jimmy Jenkins sits down with some of Bryant’s marquee players. Among them are Wilbur Jackson and defensive back John Mitchell, the first two Black members of Alabama football following the elimination of segregation. There’s also College/Pro Football Hall of Famer Ozzie Newsome, former quarterback Walter Lewis, and corner Jeremiah Castille, the soft-spoken leader of the Crimson Tide for four seasons. I found myself leaning forward when Castille spoke. You get the feeling he was the glue for those early-80s teams when Bryant needed assistance informing new players of the Alabama standard.

Curiously absent from the documentary is Joe Namath, who never misses an opportunity to wax poetic about Bryant or the Bama program, and Derrick Henry, arguably the NFL’s best all-around running back since Adrian Peterson.

For the Saban era, multiple current NFL players get a chance to share their insights, including Heisman Trophy winner DeVonta Smith, wide receiver Jerry Jeudy, defensive end Jonathan Allen, and the latest Super Bowl MVP, quarterback Jalen Hurts. Hurts gets candid about his benching during the national championship game against Georgia. After he repeatedly struggled, Saban yanked him in favor of true freshman Tua Tagovailoa, who went on to defeat the Bulldogs. Hurts would swallow his pride, and take his 26-2 record as a starter to the bench as Tagovailoa assumed starting quarterback duties. This might be the first time Hurts has spoken at length about his emotions during the game and in the season that followed. For football fans, that alone might be worth the price of admission.

The surplus of talking heads in Nothing But a Winner do a great job at contextualizing both the sports and social climates that served as the backdrops for both Bryant and Saban during their coaching tenures. Bryant was in a battle with opponents on the field and those against racial integration during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. Saban took over a team that sort of lost its way after Bryant’s retirement. Many moons later, it was Saban who made Jalen Hurts the first Black freshman to start at quarterback for the program. Sidebar: not neglected is Gene Stallings‘ tenure as Bama head coach, where he led his team to a title in 1992.

Nothing But a Winner‘s worst tendency is that it often plays like a recruiting video for the Crimson Tide. Perhaps that’s what inevitably happens when you have to contextualize the greatness of two similar football coaches who demanded excellence, barked at their players even when the Ws were coming en masse, and, in Saban’s case, went as far as to ride the asses of the underclassmen on defense after giving up 40 points in a championship win.

Still, the rose-colored glasses and praise bouquets heaped on both Bryant and Saban are clearly legitimate when you see players like Lewis and Sylvester Croom get seriously emotional when remembering their leader, or when you see Hurts recognize that he himself made an icy Saban’s eyes well when he led the Tide to a comeback victory in the SEC Championship Game a year after being benched. It’s hard to grasp those moments when the confetti falls and another win is being celebrated. Nothing But a Winner helps slow down time to give you a morsel of insight into why we call these two coaches legends.

NOTE: Nothing But a Winner: The Alabama Football Story will see a limited theatrical engagement via Fathom Events from July 31st – August 3rd.

Directed by: Jimmy Jenkins.