If you ain't first, you're last! Well, that's not entirely true, Ricky Bobby... There is second place, third place, and so on. When it comes to Alabama athletics, the Crimson Tide more than hold their own across the Power Four. Despite not winning a national championship in football, men's basketball, women's basketball, baseball, softball, and volleyball, Greg Byrne's programs did so much winning.
So when CBS Sports' Cody Nagel did his best to figure out what schools have the best athletic departments in the Power Four, it was hard to top the Crimson Tide. Under Byrne's watch, Alabama became the first school to make the College Football Playoff, the men's and women's NCAA Tournament, and the Men's and Women's College World Series in the same academic year. Unreal!
To figure out what schools were the best, he used this criteria before averaging it among the sports.
- Bowl eligible/NCAA Tournament appearance: 20 points
- Bowl win/Round of 32/Regional Finals: 30 points
- CFP appearance/Sweet 16/Super Regionals: 45 points
- CFP quarterfinals/Elite Eight/CWS: 60 points
- CFP semifinals/Final Four/CWS semifinals: 75 points
- National runner-up: 90 points
- National champion: 100 points
Alabama finished second behind Texas, but Byrne may be doing more with less than Chris Del Conte.
- Texas Longhorns: 66.73
- Alabama Crimson Tide: 53.27
- Michigan Wolverines: 50.09
- Texas A&M Aggies: 49.80
- Nebraska Cornhuskers: 49.58
- UCLA Bruins: 49.24
- Oklahoma Sooners: 48.73
- Georgia Bulldogs: 47.97
- Tennessee Volunteers: 45.88
- Miami Hurricanes: 45.86
Whether it be Kalen DeBoer, Nate Oats, Rob Vaughn, Patrick Murphy, or any of the other head coaches leading Alabama teams, they all know they have a fantastic boss. Texas may have won a national championship in softball, but Alabama was the last team in the SEC to make the College Football Playoff over the Longhorns. The data may favor Texas, but Byrne has Alabama thriving, too.
Whenever you coach at Alabama, the expectation is to be competing for championships in all sports.
Greg Byrne creates an environment where all of his Alabama teams win
Yes, the gap between Texas at No. 1 and Alabama at No. 2 is sizable in this exercise. Del Conte and Longhorn fans have every reason to clamor and celebrate being in the top spot. However, Byrne has had to deal with a few things Del Conte may not have had to. Alabama does not compete on the same level as Texas with NIL. Let's not overlook the fact that he had to replace Nick Saban three years ago.
While much will be made about Byrne's decision to hire DeBoer away from Washington to replace Saban at the helm of the football program, Byrne is also the same athletic director who brought Oats over from Buffalo to lead the basketball team. That was a slam-dunk hire if there ever was one. Getting Vaughn to come over from Maryland was huge. Same with empowering Murphy in softball.
Clearly, Byrne is attracting the right coaches to lead Alabama's young men and women to success in college athletics. More importantly, these rankings are better than your everyday Director's Cup of sorts. Schools like Stanford love doing cartwheels in the streets over non-revenue sports success. How is the Cardinal's football team doing? Exactly. Alabama is winning where it is harder to win big.
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To tie a bow on this, Alabama is going to stay near the top of all its major revenue sports because of the man in charge. There are plenty of great athletic directors across college sports, but few have been asked to make as many transformative hires as Byrne has. Yes, inheriting Saban for a minute helped, but Byrne has done everything in his power to make Alabama more than a football school.
The fact that Byrne has dones this for years in the SEC should make this accolade even more special.
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