Back on Sept. 19, the No. 2 Alabama Crimson Tide football team lost, 43-37, to the No. 15 Ole Miss Rebels.

“We play for Alabama; expectations are high,” senior defensive back Cyrus Jones said. “We expect to go out there and win every game. Losses aren’t taken lightly. They are very serious. We hate to lose. It’s no secret that it was a big deal.”

So a team meeting was called – players only.

Defensive lineman Jonathan Allen said the meeting could have lasted around 30 minutes, but he wasn’t sure.

It wasn’t the length of the meeting that mattered. It was the depth that did. 

There wasn’t just one player who stood up and did all the talking. It was a group effort. Seniors Reggie Ragland, Jarran Reed and Cyrus Jones all said their piece, but it wasn’t just the oldest players speaking up. Juniors A’Shawn Robinson, Derrick Henry and Eddie Jackson also stepped up.

“It was a whole team coming together,” Allen said.

Something went down during that team meeting, and whatever it was, it worked.

The following week, back in Bryant-Denny Stadium, Alabama shut out Louisiana-Monroe, 34-0.

“With all the things that [had] been happening and the loss that we had, we really wanted to redefine our team and show everybody that we’re better than how we played against Ole Miss,” center Ryan Kelly said. “We just came out and did our best. We finally put together a complete game as a team, and I think everybody was excited about that.”

The excitement and celebration continued on.

After shutting out the Warhawks, the Crimson Tide traveled to Georgia where it faced – and conquered – running back Nick Chubb, who, at the time, was ranked No. 2 in rushing for the SEC at the time, and the rest of the Bulldogs. Alabama won 38-10.

With a 4-1 record under its belt, Alabama kept on rolling, defeating one team after another.

Soon enough, after a 29-15 win over the No. 18 Florida Gators, Alabama earned the SEC Championship title and was making plans for the CFP Semifinals.

In the weeks leading up to the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, quarterback Jake Coker reflected back on the meeting.

“I think everybody realized that our backs were against the wall,” he said. “We only had one option – to win. Otherwise, it was something other than a championship, and that’s not what we wanted.”

Some players, such as defensive back Geno Matias-Smith, thought an early season loss was needed, and in a way, he was right. It did get the team’s head back on straight.

“It was huge,” said Matias-Smith leading up to the Texas A&M game, which Alabama won 41-23. “The type of season it is now, you can’t lose another game, really. Your chances are done. So we had to focus in and turn it up.”

And the Crimson Tide did exactly that.

When it came to losses, it was one-and-done for the 2015 Crimson Tide team. That’s it. Ole Miss was its one and only loss.

“It was just a stepping stone for us insofar as our maturity as a team,” Matias-Smith said.

Once the team got rolling, there was no stopping it.

So what came out of that meeting exactly that sparked this change for the better?

“Guys that weren’t normally talking are talking; guys that were lazy ain’t being lazy no more,” Ragland said. “We’re doing our jobs, and coach is holding us [accountable] a lot now. So everybody’s doing their job now, and if we keep doing that, we’ll be a tough team to beat.”

Tough enough that no other team that it faced could.

But even though it worked everything out itself during that meeting, Alabama wasn’t allowed to forget about its loss. Just about every week, players were asked about the team’s improvement since that game – even ten games later, all of which it won.

“You can scratch the Ole Miss game off because we are where we are now [in the CFP Semifinals],” Kelly said. “We control our own destiny.”

Just over two weeks later, Alabama shut out No. 3 Michigan State, 38-0, in the Cotton Bowl, guaranteeing it a spot in the final game.

Not long after, Alabama was up against the No. 1 Clemson Tigers in Glendale, Arizona, playing for and, in the end, winning its 16th National Championship title.

“Whether it came from that meeting, or wherever it came from, all I can say is that the players responded the right way to a loss, and we started to make progress as a team,” coach Nick Saban said. “I was very pleased with the way these guys responded to every challenge for the rest of the season.”