I remember when Alabama wasn’t scary. It was a long time ago when a dude named Mike Shula was coaching and praying Tim Tebow would come and save his football program. Tebow chose Urban Meyer and Florida, and the Gators won a couple of nattys. Meanwhile, Shula crapped out in Tuscaloosa after earning the attention of the NCAA, and a guy named Nick Saban was hired. It was 2007. Now, 16 seasons later, Alabama is no longer scary. And it feels odd.
Even in 2007 when Saban was 7-6 it felt like they were scary. He came back to college football from a failed stint in the NFL with the Miami Dolphins and immediately began recruiting as well as he did when he won a natty at LSU. And then he took it to a new level. Six national titles later, Alabama was always scary from a roster perspective, even when Georgia took it to them in the national title game and took over the SEC. But this year? It’s just a bunch of okay players.
I started doing my Farrell 50 breakdowns by position, and I started to notice it. Alabama had no QBs in my top 50. Their best running back was mid, and their receivers were average. The offensive line looked meh aside from JC Latham, and on and on it went. There were a few elite defensive players, but nothing like the ridiculous depth I’d seen in the past, having done lists like this since 2010. I was actually kind of surprised, and it was a bit jarring. But I didn’t think much of it. After all, this is Nick Saban. He’ll figure it out, right? Now, I’m completely unsure.
I went back and started to look at the recruiting and found something. In the past, Alabama landed upper-crust players consistently. And by upper-crust, I mean the top of the top. But in recent years, there was a slight dip, barely even noticeable. I mean, what’s the difference between A+ recruits and A recruits, right? So, instead of the No. 1 class in the country, they were in the 4-6 range. No harm is there? Wrong.
What’s happening is that Alabama is going from round-one QBs to mid-level to undraftable QBs. From round-one RBs to mids, from round-one WRs to guys who could be undrafted free agents, and so on. It’s better on defense, but on offense, it’s bad, and it’s showing.
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People point to NIL and the portal for Alabama’s woes, but that’s not it — trust me. It’s a combination of UGA and others taking more and more elite players away and a lack of player development. Recruiting losses like QB Drake Maye to UNC can be pointed to, and they hurt, but this isn’t simply a QB issue. It’s an overall roster issue. I haven’t ranked the college football rosters yet, but I know for sure that Alabama will be in the 6-10 range after being in the 1-2 range for over a dozen seasons. And that small dip is obviously huge.
Alabama will likely win 8 or 9 games this season, but they won’t be in contention for the college football playoff — at all. And that’s brand new to me. Rotating coordinators, so much staff churn, and Nick Saban having marginally less of an impact on his team have all led to a slight dip in recruiting and development, and here we are. And it’s just an odd feeling.
So what’s the fix? There isn’t one really. Everything great comes to an end, and the run Saban has made is unparalleled in recent college football history. It will eventually come down to who replaces him and see if they can bring Alabama to the same heights, which is extremely unlikely.
This isn’t a eulogy by any means. It’s just the start of the end, like the first time you saw a great player look mortal. This is Tom Brady in his last year with the Bucs or Michael Jordan in his first season with the Wizards. Greatness is still there, but it’s not as consistent, and the dip in results is evident. Recruiting will suffer even more, and Saban will step down over the next few years. For now, we will just have to watch in a kind of shock at the things we see — like home losses by double digits (Texas) and lackluster outings against bad teams (USF). And it’s kind of depressing.
