PASADENA, California − Dallas Turner is the first member of the club.

Nobody associated with Alabama football, Turner included, wanted this club to ever be formed. But when Turner told The Tuscaloosa News' Nick Kelly, after the Crimson Tide's devastating 27-20 overtime loss to Michigan in the Rose Bowl, that he will declare early eligibility for the 2024 NFL draft, the junior from Ft. Lauderdale became a first: the first Alabama player to spend three years in coach Nick Saban's program without winning a national championship.

You read that correctly.

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Along with a bitter end to a season that came within a hand's reach of another national championship, Alabama's disappointing finish in Monday's College Football Playoff semifinal rendered the most amazing factoid about Saban's 17-year run no longer factual. Saban's first crop of third-year players won a 2009 national title in this very Rose Bowl Stadium, and with at least one title over every three-year period since, Monday's loss gave Saban his first three-year stretch (2021-2023) without his players getting fitted for another ring.

Alabama simply didn't play well enough to win against the Wolverines. But at a point in Alabama football history where disappointment can be the only sentiment, the consistency with which the program has at least put itself in the position of playing for a championship remains as remarkable as ever.

Even with Turner starting the club.

Alabama's 2023 team should be remembered as one that accomplished a lot more than its 2022 predecessor, in the absence of any sensible logic suggesting it should have. Between turnover at the quarterback position and new starters all over the lineup, it was pegged to simply be the next phase of a gradual Alabama decline. For most of September, it played like a team bound for a minor bowl game and all the opt-outs that go along with them. Then, it galvanized with equal measures of mettle and grit; come-from-behind wins and winning plays in clutch moments for 11 consecutive victories.

It recaptured the SEC, and a measure of respect along with it.

It was a story fit for a Hollywood script, until it wasn't.

The bottom line on Michigan's victory was simple enough: its defense dominated early, and its offense dominated late. Alabama's pass protection reverted to its early-season struggles, and its pass rush got to Michigan QB J.J. McCarthy with about the same consistency as it got to Texas' Quinn Ewers in its only other loss, which is to say it never got there at all. Defense and special teams largely carried the Crimson Tide for most of three quarters. But clinging to a 20-13 lead with just 4:41 remaining in regulation, the defense gave out in allowing a late game-tying touchdown drive, and offered little resistance on the Wolverines' overtime touchdown.

And so the club was started.

The rest of Alabama's underclassmen who declare for the draft – the most likely candidates include Terrion Arnold, Kool-Aid McKinstry and JC Latham – figure to join Turner soon enough. The number of players Saban has coached at Alabama now numbers in the thousands, through 17 seasons, three Presidential administrations, and six well-spaced national crowns.

But the team that finally unlocked the clubhouse door didn't backslide like all reasonable expectations dictated. By winning the SEC and reaching the CFP, it built something back.

And Turner was part of that club, too.

Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of Crimson Cover TV on WVUA-23 and the Talkin' Tide podcast. Reach him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter @chasegoodbread.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Dallas Turner draft decision puts perspective on incredible Alabama run