Alabama Football: On National Championship odds and tired claims
It takes a hard search to find the few who predict a 2023 National Championship for Alabama Football. Instead, the Georgia Bulldogs, Michigan Wolverines, Ohio State Buckeyes, and Southern Cal Trojans are most often picked.
Alabama Crimson Tide fans have minimal experience in most of the college football world doubting a Nick Saban, Alabama team. Instead, we have loads of experience of many fanbases whining, season after season, about the purported weakness of Alabama football schedules.
Since there are more days than I want to count until the next football season, I decided to fill some time, diving into a 2023 schedule comparison of arguably the top five 2023 National Championship contenders.
A warning to any LSU or Tennessee fans who have wandered onto the Bama Hammer site; neither of your teams are included in my five National Championship contenders.
The four teams joining the Crimson Tide on the contender list are Georgia, Michigan, Ohio State and USC.
The method of comparison is simple. The 2022 records of each team’s 2023 opponents are used. The other data point is a projection provided by College Football News (CFN) ranking all 133 FBS teams for the 2023 season.
To fairly assess the five teams, the weakest 2023 opponent for each team is not considered in the evaluation. For Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State that means dropping games against FCS teams. For Michigan, UNLV was dropped as the Wolverines’ weakest opponent; for Southern Cal, the dropped team was Nevada.
Alabama Football and 2023 Contenders and Opponents Win-Loss Records
- Ohio State Buckeyes opponents, 2022 records in total were 87-56
- Alabama Crimson Tide opponents, 2022 records were 79-62
- Michigan Wolverines opponents, 2022 records 78-62
- Georgia Bulldogs opponents, 2022 records 73-66
- Southern Cal Trojans opponents, 2022 records 72-66
Average Projected CFN Ranking of 2023 Opponents (based on College Football News)
- Ohio State Buckeyes – 36.1 average opponent ranking
- Alabama Crimson Tide – 37.9
- Southern Cal Trojans – 46.5
- Georgia Bulldogs – 49.2
- Michigan Wolverines – 49.5
Admittedly the CFN projection will not match a future end-of-season ranking of the 133 FBS programs. Overall it could be generally accurate, but still with significant deviations from some teams. It is a guideline providing some valuable perspective. For example, among the chosen contenders, Michigan appears to have the best chance of making another CFB Playoff field. The Wolverines are followed by Georgia, that always benefit from competing in the SEC East Division.
Why no ‘little ole’ Clemson or Notre Dame? Because in my opinion, neither should be considered a contender.
