Alabama Football: New ranking for ’21 signees shows Tide dominance and more

Alabama Football fans are mostly excited about expanding the Playoff. Most would also agree with what SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said weeks ago, and reiterated last week; the four-team format is satisfactory for the SEC.

A couple of weeks ago, Dabo Swinney was on target, when he said,

"I don’t think there’s 12 teams good enough"

Alabama Football fans know that is true. There can be debate over why it is true. A big reason why is unequal levels of talent on team rosters. There are far fewer than 12 teams with the roster talent to win a National Championship.

The claim most driving a larger Playoff field is the four-team format is not fair. This post is not about Championships or Playoff formats, or any interpretation of ‘fairness’. Instead, it simply compares the roster talent of top teams.

There is a calculation called the Blue Chip Index. The index was created by Bud Elliott and it has merit for consideration. Elliott explains his premise as,

"… college football is not a sport which offers much hope to Cinderella stories when it comes to winning it all.For that, teams have to recruit at a ridiculous level to even have a chance."

Quantifying that ‘ridiculous level’ is not easy. Elliott’s simple calculation may tend to indicate too many teams have the roster strength to contend for a Championship.

Elliott bases his calculation on 4-Star and 5-Star signees. Heading in the same direction as Elliott, but from a slightly different perspective, tracking the Top 150 players in each signing class may be more illuminating.

With the entry into the media world of On3.com there is a new source to assess the 2021 class. One of the first things published by On3 was a ranking on 2021 signees. The new ranking may or may not be better than other sources, but it is a fresh look worthy of attention.

Alabama Football Fane will love these player rankings

Top 50 Player Rankings

Nineteen teams signed Top 50 players in the 2021 class. Only five teams signed three or more. The Alabama Crimson Tide signed 11.

• No. 6 J.C. Latham
• No. 10 Agiye Hall
• No. 12 Kool-Aid McKinstry
• No. 14 Tommy Brockermeyer
• No. 15 Keanu Koht
• No. 20 Deontae Lawson
• No. 23 Dallas Turner
• No. 29 Terrion Arnold
• No. 34 Terrence Ferguson
• No. 46 Jacorey Brooks
• No. 48 JoJo Earle

Ohio State followed the Crimson Tide with eight, Top 50 players. The Georgia Bulldogs had five. Clemson and North Carolina each had three, Top 50 players.

Stretch out the comparison to the Top 150 signees and the results are much the same.

Top 150 Player Rankings

In addition to the 11 listed above, the Crimson Tide had six more players ranked inside the Top 150

• No. 54 Monkell Goodwine
• No. 67 Christian Leary
• No. 80 Camar Wheaton
• No. 101 Jalen Milroe
• No. 116 Anquin Barnes
• No. 132 Devonta Smith

Following the Tide’s 17, Top 150 players were Ohio State (13), Georgia (10), LSU (9), Oregon and Texas A&M (8), Clemson (7); then Oklahoma and North Carolina (6).

The sample of one class and ratings by one source is insufficient data to draw a conclusion. But a good hunch is only the teams listed above have complete rosters talented enough to be Championship contenders.

The college football world can strive for more fairness – but talent disparities between the elite teams, and all the others, will always appear to be unfair.