In Week 3 of the college football season, there is no consensus about the Alabama Crimson Tide. The national media doesn't much know what to make of Alabama. Even with some pundits claiming solid insight, no consensus exists. So far, against two widely different opponents, Alabama has been two significantly different teams.
The muddled situation is similar to what college football went through in the BCS years. Human poll voters were often doubted, and computer models were sometimes considered to be better at ranking teams. The models proved not to be algorithmic soothsayers. Even so, in the BCS Era, there was no widespread debate that in each season, the two best teams competed for the National Championship.
Alabama football fans are not yet sure what to make of the Crimson Tide either. Some mixture of reality and clarity is anticipated on Sept. 27 when Alabama takes on Georgia in Athens.
Currently, very few college football pundits have the Crimson Tide as a Playoff team. One demented pundit predicts Alabama's post-season will be a trip to Nashville for the Music City Bowl. Numerous less deranged bowl predictions have the Crimson playing somewhere in Florida.
Alabama Crimson Tide and the Computer Models
ESPN's Football Power Index (FPI) still loves the Crimson Tide. The FPI has Alabama as the SEC's second-highest-ranked team. ESPN's Bill Connelly SP+ model ranks 766 college football teams. Connelly's Top 766 algorithm has the Crimson Tide as college football's No. 3 team and his highest-ranked SEC team. The model has Oregon at No. 1, followed by Ohio State. The Georgia Bulldogs are No. 4.
Jeff Sagarin's model was used in BCS calculations. It remains a good source for consideration. Like the FPI, Sagarin's model values the Alabama Crimson Tide. As with Connelly, Sagarin has Alabama as the SEC's top team, ranked at No. 5 nationally. There are 13 SEC teams in Sagarin's current Top 25. Alabama has remaining games against seven of them.
Digging through the weeds of the multiple Sagarin calculations shows that the model predicts Alabama will beat Wisconsin by 17.4 points. The number comes from the ratings for the teams, plus the Tide's Bryant-Denny advantage.
Keep in mind, that it takes until at least Weeks 6 or 7 for any model to have enough data to produce reasonable accuracy.