Alabama Football: Six false narratives for 2023 season

While Alabama Football is frequently undervalued, four other SEC football teams or coaches are being overvalued.

False Narrative No. 4

LSU has an outstanding coach in Brian Kelly. Josh Huepel has done an outstanding job at Tennessee. Because of both coaches, the two programs are trendy options for recruits and transfers. LSU is better than it has been since its National Championship season. Tennessee is better than what seems like forever. Despite pundit claims, neither of the programs has bypassed the Crimson Tide in roster talent.

Based on the 247Sports Composite, Nick Saban’s last five recruiting classes have been No. 1 three times and No. 2 twice. Unlike most coaches, Nick Saban is able to use the Transfer Portal for select quality rather than quantity. The fact is the 2023 Alabama football roster has more talent than either Tennessee or LSU.

False Narrative No. 5

Texas A&M is purported to have cured its weaknesses by adding Bobby Petrino to the staff. An easy counterclaim is two ‘just above average’ offensive coaches do not make one Guru. The fact is dysfunction on top of dysfunction has never created anything but more dysfunction. The Aggies ‘are back’ is a claim with no sound basis.

False Narrative No. 6

To protect the guilty, I will not link the following claim. Recently one pundit picked Auburn as a darkhorse CFB Playoff team. A credible sports site published the obvious insanity. Not only is Auburn, not a Playoff contender, the Reverend Hugh Freeze is no coaching genius. Freeze won at Ole Miss by breaking rules, giving the Rebels an advantage. The fact is in the new, no-rules world of college football, Freeze has no such advantage. He is though, perfect for the Aubies.

In this post, no claim is made of a Mark Twain-like acuity for recognizing ‘lies and damned lies.’ But some false claims are too obvious to be unseen.