Alabama Football: Seven stunning Nick Saban and Crimson Tide records

For college football fans, especially Alabama football fans, summers are ordeals that feel endless. The void of the college football offseason is often filled with noise and clamor, bold claims mixed with trepidation.

So far this summer, the college football world has been mostly consumed by the sound and fury of NIL passions. For Crimson Tide fans, a holiday weekend is a good time to stop, take a deep breath or two, and calm down.

Alabama football, no matter what happens in the 2023 recruiting cycle will not be brought down by the NIL deals made by other programs for recruits. Nick Saban and the Alabama football staff will still recruit well. Even if too many dollars lure too many highly rated targets elsewhere.

It won’t matter. Nick Saban does not sell immediate gratification. He will not suddenly start guaranteeing recruits anything but hard work and competition – just as he did back when the Alabama Crimson Tide so desperately needed Julio Jones to stay in-state.

Let other programs award millions before they are earned. Such a strategy carries significant downside risk, others are destined to experience.

The Alabama Football program has all the facts it needs to prove its path provides the best rewards.

Alabama Football Selling Points

• Nick Saban is the coach with the most NFL first-round players at 46; 41 of them coming from the Crimson Tide since 2009. The next closest coach is Joe Paterno with 33 first-rounders. It took Paterno 46 coaching seasons compared to 26 for Saban.
• Thanks to Matt Brown for the stat of Saban wins against Top 5 teams.

• The Saban National Championship record speaks so loudly, other coaches having won one (or two) are drowned out. Since the first Saban-Alabama National Championship in 2009, Dabo Swinney has two; Gene Chizik, Jimbo Fisher, Urban Meyer, Ed Orgeron and Kirby Smart have a total of five.
• Thanks to CFB Home for this stat – since 2007 Alabama Football has 69 wins over ranked opponents. Next closest to the Crimson Tide is Ohio State with 45, LSU with 43 and Oklahoma with 42.
• Alabama Football is the King of SEC Championships with 29. Only eight other SEC programs have ever won an SEC Championship. The most recent for other teams is LSU in 2019 (their 12th); then Georgia in 2017 (their 13th); Auburn in 2013 (their 8th); Florida in 2008 (their 8th); Tennessee in 1998 (their 13th); Ole Miss in 1963 (their 6th); Kentucky in 1950 (their 2nd) and Mississippi State in 1941 for their only SEC Championship.
• The next stat is somewhat odd but nonetheless amazing. At Alabama, Nick Saban’s teams have lost 25 games. Since his first season in Tuscaloosa in 2007, the SEC West has had 26 coaches.
• Plus there is the 100-win streak over unranked teams that was broken by Texas A&M. The two, next longest streaks are Florida with 73 wins and Miami with 72 wins.

Recruits and their families looking at the best-proven return from playing college football only need to consider the Nick Saban and Alabama Football history. Paraphrasing an old Aaron Sorkin line ‘these are the facts and they are not in dispute.’