Alabama is bound for another College Football Playoff. The Tide confirmed as much by piling up a 54-16 beatdown on Florida in Saturday’s SEC Championship Game, moving to 13-0 and punching a Peach Bowl semifinal ticket as the sure top overall seed in the country.
Alabama was the first team to make the Playoff twice. Now, it’s 3 times.
The Tide rolled to another Playoff on Saturday. They’re used to it.
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There’s historical significance to Alabama’s achievement. Alabama was the No. 1 seed in the 2014 season’s Playoff, the inaugural year of the Playoff era. It was the No. 2 seed in last year’s Playoff, which it ultimately won. Alabama was the only team in each of the first two Playoffs, and now it’s the only team in each of the first three.
This year could turn out to be another exclamation point on one of the sport’s greatest dynasties ever. Winning two more games would make an incredible five national championships in Tuscaloosa in 10 seasons under Nick Saban.
As it happens, Alabama’s current dynasty is most closely vying with its own former dynasty for the title of Best College Football Dynasty Ever.
The 2009-15 Tide are one of two programs to win four national titles in seven years, and the only other one (1943-49 Notre Dame) did it under World War II-altered circumstances that made college football a much different, smaller thing.
Bear Bryant’s 1973-79 Alabama won three in seven with better schedule strength than anyone else who’d done that, and Saban’s Alabama has already surpassed it. A win this year would make five in eight, which has happened either never or once, depending on how you view Minnesota’s pre-AP Poll era titles from the 1930s. Either way, Alabama would be the first modern team to have done it.
Alabama’s on a rocket ship ride. It’s not slowing down.
Against Florida in the SEC Championship, Alabama continued its defensive dominance, scoring two non-offensive touchdowns in the second quarter, giving the Tide 14 of those on the year. There’s no telling which unit is going to beat you when you play Alabama; it can be the offense, defense, or special teams on any given day. But when all three of them do things that can beat you, that’s what makes this team so scary.
This might be the best Bama team Saban’s ever had.
Given what’s happened in the last nine seasons, it’s hard to be definitive about that. And if Alabama doesn’t win the title, it probably won’t hold up.
But so far, the body of work holds up just fine. Alabama’s not only the country’s only Power 5 unbeaten; it’s ranked No. 1 in the advanced stat S&P+ for the second year in a row and the third time under Saban.
The other two times were also national title years (last year and 2012), but a Playoff win this year would make for the first time during an undefeated season. You’d have to put the 2016 Tide right next to the 2009 team that went 14-0. The biggest difference? This year’s team would’ve won one more game to win it all.
Alabama hasn’t actually done any of this yet, and the current Tide players and coaches likely aren’t thinking as far ahead (or as far backward) as I am. But what Alabama has done is already historic, and 2016 has a chance to be the high water mark.
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