Alabama Football: Ten years of stunning consistency under Nick Saban

Over the last ten seasons, the winning consistency of Alabama football has been unmatched in college football – and compared to other top teams, it is not close.

Most Alabama football fans are ready to cast aside the teeth-gnashing loss to Clemson in the national championship game. National media were quick to seize on the ‘Dynasty is Dead’ theme so popular throughout the rest of college football. Dynasties die by erosion of success and at least in college football, not by one sudden event.

Yes, the loss was sobering given the Alabama Crimson Tide was both outcoached and outplayed. What does it portend for the future? None of us can know. What we do know is over the last ten seasons, Alabama football has been in the national title hunt almost every season because of remarkable consistency in winning.

Credit the idea for this post to the insight of Chris Lowe. Lowe pointed out during the 2018 offseason, the Tide’s paucity of losses to anyone other than ranked teams. The details are extraordinary, so much so that no other top CFB program comes close.

Going back 10 seasons to 2009, Alabama football has lost only 13 games. None of the losses came against unranked teams. Six of the losses were against teams ranked outside the AP Poll Top 10. Those losses were to South Carolina (No. 19) and LSU (No. 12) in 2010; Texas A&M (No. 15) in 2012; Oklahoma (No. 11) in 2013; Ole Miss (No. 11) in 2014 and the Rebels again (No. 15) in 2015.

The losses to Top 10 teams were: Auburn (No. 2) in 2010; LSU (No. 1) in 2011; Auburn (No.4) in 2013; Ohio State (No. 5) in 2014; Clemson (No. 3) in 2016; Auburn (No. 6) in 2017 and Clemson (No. 2) in last season’s national championship game.

No other program comes close

To compare, we calculated the ten season schedules of Clemson, Oklahoma and Ohio State. Clemson lost 27 games over the past 10 seasons. Ten of those losses were to unranked teams. Over the same period, the Oklahoma Sooners lost 28 games. Eight of the Sooners’ losses came against unranked teams.

Then there is the bell cow of the Big Ten, the Ohio State Buckeyes. What stands out with Ohio State is not only losses to unranked teams, but also the beatdowns in some of those losses. The Buckeyes lost 19 games in the ten-year period with nine of the losses against unranked teams.

Much of college football was shocked was Clemson beat Ohio State 31-0 in 2016. But Clemson was ranked No. 3 at the time. That loss can be excused. What cannot be excused are two losses in 2017 and 2018. In 2017, unranked Iowa beat the Buckeyes 55-24. In 2018, unranked Purdue beat Ohio State 49-20.

Critics of this review will challenge disparities in schedule strength. When an ACC, Big 12 or B1G team can prove a tougher schedule than the Crimson Tide over any three-year period, we’ll listen. We will not be holding our breath.

The facts are over the last 10 seasons, Alabama football, even without the national championships, has been the dominant program in college football – and it is not close.

Our team records source for this post was sportsreference.com. It is a site we enthusiastically endorse.