Alabama Football: Lots of buzz about ’20 Tide as CFB’s best team ever

13-0, 2020 Alabama Crimson Tide

• In the regular season, the Tide handily beat both the No. 13 TAMU Aggies and the No. 3 Georgia Bulldogs. Alabama Football also won over No. 22 Auburn. The Aggies finished No. 4, The Georgia Bulldogs, No. 7 and Auburn finished unranked.
• In the SEC Championship game, The Crimson Tide beat the No. 11 ranked Florida Gators. The Gators were No. 13 in the final poll.
• In the College Football Playoff, the Crimson Tide beat No. 4 Notre Dame and No. 2 Ohio State. The Fighting Irish finished No. 5 and Ohio State finished No. 2.

Looking closely at the 2009 and 2020 seasons, ’20 had more victories over more top teams. The Alabama Crimson Tide beat No. 2, No. 4, No. 5, No. 7 and No. 13 teams. That string of Crimson Tide victories clearly surpassed what was accomplished by the 2009 Alabama Crimson Tide.

What about other college football programs?

Other teams that will immediately come to the minds of football fans are the 2018 Clemson team and the 2019 LSU team. Strong recency bias pushes those two teams to the top when considering the ‘best-ever’ CFB team. They are used as a point of comparison with the 1995 Nebraska team that has been long considered by many as the ‘best-ever.’.

Some narrowing of view is required to distinguish the best of 1995 Nebraska, 2018 Clemson and 2019 LSU. Teams played fewer games in the 1990s. The Cornhuskers did not get the benefit of playing a rated team in a Big 12 Championship game. The first of the league’s conference championships was played after the 1996 season. With no conference championship game and no Playoff, the Cornhuskers played in 12 games. To equalize comparison to today’s schedules, only four games against ranked teams are used.

In 2018, Clemson beat only three teams ranked in the final poll; No. 2 Alabama, No. 5 Notre Dame and No. 15 Syracuse (unranked when the two teams played). Based on the final poll, 2019 LSU’s top four wins were No. 2 Clemson, No. 4 Georgia, No. 7 Oklahoma and No. 7 Alabama.

In the 1995 regular season, Nebraska beat three Top 10 teams in the final ranking. Those wins were over No. 5 Colorado, No. 7 Kansas State and No. 9 Kansas. In the Fiesta Bowl against the No. 2 Florida Gators, the Cornhuskers won the National Championship. What gives 1995 Nebraska the edge over 2019 LSU are the final games.

The Bengal Tigers beat a No. 3 ranked Clemson team, 42-25. The Cornhuskers won their National Championship even more impressively. Nebraska took down a No. 2 ranked Florida team 62-24. Although the edge may be slight, the Nebraska domination of Florida surpassed how LSU handled Clemson.

The debate over which team is the ‘best ever’ can never be settled. Despite the differences being small, our conclusion of the top three of all-time are:

1. 2020 Alabama Crimson Tide
2. 1995 Nebraska Cornhuskers
3. 2019 LSU Bengal Tigers

 What did the three teams have in common? That’s easy; their offenses can be described with one word – unstoppable.

Fans of other programs will disagree with this review. Looking back through several eras of college football, we admit strong arguments can be made for other schools.