Alabama Football greatest Dynasty debate stubbornly lingers

Monday night the revisionist history over the greatest CFB Dynasty of all-time can end with an Alabama football victory over Clemson.

Last January we published a detailed list of college football’s greatest dynasties. To us the conclusion was irrefutable. The current Alabama Football Dynasty is the greatest in the history of college football.

Our assessment was not blinded by Crimson. We admitted Minnesota could make a reasonable claim of coming close to matching the Crimson Tide feat. The Gophers, under Bernie Bierman, won five national championships over an eight-season span from 1934-1941. A Gopher argument can be made it was the greatest ever because it took Alabama football nine seasons to win five. A small problem with such a claim is one of the Minnesota championships was in 1934, before the poll era. A bigger problem for Minnesota is the Gophers were 3-4-1 in 1939. There is nothing dynastic about a team winning less than 40 percent of its games in a season.

Admittedly our Minnesota argument points out the murkiness in dynasty claims. There is no defined standard. When a UCF can claim a national championship last season, objective fact is clearly optional.

We can hope for an end to truth decay but for now, the best we can achieve is a preponderance of opinion. After Alabama football won another national championship in January 2018, there was a strong chorus for the current dynasty being the greatest ever. That chorus reflected a consensus across the world of college football but it is not a unanimous opinion.

There are still holdouts. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a vocal holdout comes from the Oklahoma Sooners’ fanbase. And why are we not surprised? A recent example is the revisionist thinking of current  Oklahoma head coach, Lincoln Riley. After losing to the Crimson Tide, Riley said,

"I mean, they outplayed us early. I think it’s as simple as that. It was just a complete tale of two games. I mean, they completely outplayed us early and then we completely outplayed them pretty much the rest of the way."

Lincoln must not have had a box score handy in those post-game comments. Pardon us for resorting to facts but the Crimson Tide won the first quarter 21-0. Second quarter points were 10 for each team. The Sooners outscored the Tide 10-0 in the third quarter. The fourth quarter saw 14 points for each team. So Lincoln, if you want to credibly ease the pain of a loss, the Sooners ‘completely outplayed’ the Tide in the third quarter alone. Saying “pretty much the rest of the way” does not make you a staunch defender of your team. It makes you a whiner.

Speaking of whining, any claim of an Oklahoma Dynasty being equal to the Crimson Tide is just that. After the Tide won the 2017 national championship, such a claim was made. To save Alabama football fans from reading the nonsense, the OU contention was three national championships from 1950-1955 was equal to the current Alabama football dynasty. Three is greater than five is news to the rest of the world. And in addition, the 1950 Oklahoma national championship was in a season when the nattys were determined before bowl games. Bear Bryant’s Kentucky team beat Oklahoma in the 1951 Sugar Bowl.

Surely another national championship win Monday night will forever silence the greatest ever CFB Dynasty debate. At least it should.

Just for the record, our position is firm and clear. Win or lose on Monday night, the current Alabama Football Dynasty is the game’s greatest ever.