Every time Alabama wins a national title, someone updates the helmet on ESPN’s set to feature Tide’s new number of claimed championships

After a thrilling win over Georgia in Atlanta, Alabama’s number of claimed national titles jumped from 16 to 17. That was reflected in the Bama helmet that was on ESPN’s set for the game.

Before the game:

And after:

Has Alabama actually won 17 national titles? Well ... according to Bama it has. At least a couple are dubious, and others are debatable, though there’s at least one the Tide could start claiming. SB Nation went back and tallied up the historical “consensus” from every season in college football history, finding the Tide’s actual number would be 11, if there were only one true champ for every season. But, of course, college football has almost never worked like that.

So let’s just get used to Bama’s post-championship helmet dance, because there’s no real end in sight to it.

This happens every other year or so, these days. The before-and-after from 2012:

Somewhere out there, a Bama graduate assistant’s graduate assistant’s intern’s assistant intern has already applied a No. 19 on a helmet in anticipation of the title after next. Of course a No. 18 was already prepared.