Alabama Football: Crimson Tide All-Decade Team

Cornerback (Dee Milliner, Levi Wallace, “Star” Minkah Fitzpatrick)

Everyone knows how great a player Fitzpatrick is, but it’s a more difficult than you think to add him to the list of great corners over the last decade. The truth is, safety is probably his most effective spot in the secondary, but as you’ll see in a minute, those spots have their own legends to fill. Minkah was just plain good at everything. Let him rove around the field (like he did during his Thorpe-winning, All-American 2017 campaign) and he’ll make you pay for it somehow. Minkah’s a no-brainer even if you can’t pigeonhole him.

When it comes to the edge corner spots, I’m looking at the guys who aren’t necessarily the best at picking the ball off (though Wallace and Milliner certainly were great) but were stellar in man-to-man coverage and could break passes up seemingly at will. Milliner is the best to do it in the Saban ever. In 2012, alone, he broke up 22 passes on his way to unanimous All-American honors.

Wallace made the most of his one year as a starter, breaking up 15 passes in 2017 and dispelling the notion that former walk-ons couldn’t break into the two-deep. That season he supplanted then-sophomore Trevon Diggs in the first game of the season and didn’t cede it for the remainder of the season. He didn’t have the size of Milliner or Fitzpatrick, but he was a first-rate technician and that’s what you need with Saban’s bump-and-run style of play. Wallace was fabulous at that.

Honorable Mention: Marlon Humphrey, Dre Kirkpatrick, “Star” Patrick Surtain, Jr.