A month has passed since Alabama suffered a 44-16 loss to Clemson in the national championship game, and the stench of that defeat still lingers.

Nick Saban smells it, as he explained Wednesday when he attributed the bad result to the absence of the “Alabama factor” that helped the Crimson Tide emerge as the top college football program during this decade.

“That has always helped us be successful,” Saban said. “That’s having a team that plays with a lot of discipline, that’s having a team that everybody is sort of responsible and accountable to do their job at a high level and a standard and everybody puts the team first. So that’s the standard. And it’s up to the individual players on the team to do that. If I thought that we weren’t doing that in one game or ten games, I would address it with the players and make sure that everybody was on board with those principles and values that have helped us be successful. I don’t think we played in that game with the Alabama factor. So everybody needs to understand that and respond to it.”

In cryptic fashion, Saban implied the team became complacent after it raced to a 14-0 start during a run that included 13 wins by ten or more points.

An electrifying offense made the Crimson Tide seem invincible as it averaged 47.7 points per game before its showdown with Clemson, when the wheels came off and Alabama experienced its worst loss in the Saban Era.

“If you lose your humility, it sort of creates that I am above doing things the way I need to do them to to prepare for a game and go play in a game against good competition,” Saban said. “And if I put my own agenda ahead of the team or winning, it’s going to have some effect on my performance. So, if I think those things are existing in the program, I think that they need to be addressed. And they have been.”

Rainer Sabin is an Alabama beat writer for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @RainerSabin