How good is Alabama football?

How good is Alabama?

Let’s take a hard look at the Alabama Crimson Tide, and see the greatness of the team…or how they might be a little over rated.

This is not made in cruel jest to the fans of Alabama, but let’s face it, to be a GREAT team, there has to be some strong indicators of it, and the signs of a great team are not just in wins, but WHO you beat, WHERE you beat them, and how much.

Last night, during the Boise State/Tulsa game, Lou Holtz (of whom I am NOT a fan of) said that style points didn’t matter when you are trying to prove to the nation how good you are…

That is spaghetti hogwash!

The power of a team is strongly based on who you beat and by how much. So I use that formula to examine whether Alabama is worthy of the #3 ranking that much of the pollsters feel they belong.

We start from last year, because it is how they vaulted so high at the beginning of this year.

Last year Alabama finished 12-2, one of the better teams of the nation. I mean, surely if you come out of the SEC with such a record, and only lose two games that year, it means you are poised for a real shot at the National Championship, right?

Alabama went 12-0 at one point, until it came to playing Florida in the SEC Championship, and lost that by 11. They went to a bowl and lost to Utah by 14. The Crimson Tide lost to two “better than average” teams. So am I implying that all they beat were “average” teams last year? Let’s examine:

Factor out the cupcakes like Western Kentucky and Arkansas State and we’ll start with the 10 teams they played. They beat Clemson first, and remember this was a team ranked as one of the top 10, maybe top 5 in the nation…how did that work out? Finished a dismal 7-6.

Then there was Tulane…finished 2-10. But by then the nation thought that Alabama was immediately a top 5 team because they dismantled Clemson, who clearly was not who anybody thought they were.

So now we get into the SEC schedule. Home game wins over Kentucky, Mississippi, Mississippi State and Auburn. The latter two teams didn’t even qualify for a bowl, Kentucky goes 7-6 and Mississippi turns out to be a decent team, so credit to Alabama for winning that game. The Kentucky and MSU games turn out to be closer than the other home games.

The road games included Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee and LSU. Arkansas and Tennessee don’t win enough to qualify for a bowl, but Georgia has a 10 win season, and LSU has a good 8 win season. The Georgia win on the road may well have been Alabama’s best win of the year.

If you melt down the games and pick out the defining games, it would have to be the road wins over Georgia and LSU. This indeed validates Alabama as a good team…but a top 10 team? I think so. Top 5? I am not too certain.

Now fast forward to this year, 2009.

Currently 6-0, let’s go ahead and factor out Florida International and North Texas. These are cupcake games that do not factor in the greatness of a team should they win, but cripple a season when they lose. Simply put, Alabama was supposed to win those anyway.

But what of Virginia Tech? Now THAT is a credible win. Virginia Tech has only lost one game so far this year…to this very same Alabama squad. Some might question the strength of the ACC, but to me, this is a very valid win for Alabama.

So now we look at their other wins, home at Arkansas, and on the road at Kentucky and then ranked #20 Mississippi. This Arkansas team might be pretty decent, after knocking off ranked Auburn, but is this an over rated team? Still many more games to go, and Arkansas has historically been a mid-card team.

Kentucky has lost 3 straight, after barely beating Louisville in the second game…looks like a basement team for the SEC. Mississippi was once a top 5 team but we all found out that this was mirror magic. As Dennis Green once said of the Chicago Bears, “they are who we THOUGHT they were!”

So right now, Alabama has a good win over Virginia Tech, and the jury is still out on Arkansas. That is the length of their greatness…does THAT warrant a top 3 ranking?

I gotta tell ya, I am not fully convinced about a top 3 ranking, especially since many teams got political slides based on other teams losing. You tell me how Mississippi can jump up to #4 because better teams lost big time games. Many teams got that advantage this year, only to prove that they weren’t worth the high ranking. Is Alabama the same way? Remember folks, this was a team that went 12-0 over an average schedule, or slightly better than average, before losing to Florida and Utah, back to back.

Top 10? Definitely! Top 5? No probs with that. Top 3? Not too sure. Not yet.