2009 Crimson Tide – one of college football’s all-time greatest teams

03-01-10

Throughout the course of college football history fans have witnessed some truly amazing performances on the gridiron. They’ve seen dominant teams produce amazing results on the road to the national championship. In fact, several of those champions left permanent impressions on the country, each making a solid case to be considered among the best to ever take the field. In my opinion the accomplishments of the 2009 Alabama football program might overshadow them all.

Yes, I’m sure that opposing fans will spend days compiling data and making inane arguments against my last statement. They might even be able to muster a couple of equal comparisons, but after reading this column I think you’ll understand why it’s probably pointless to try.

The accomplishments of the 2009 Crimson Tide football team were simply astounding by any standards.

The following list of facts should serve as solid proof and leave little doubt that this 2009 Crimson Tide unit should be considered one of the nation’s all time best:

In beating LSU and then Florida and Texas back-to-back, Alabama beat the three previous BCS championship schools (Texas 2005, Florida 2006, LSU 2007 and Florida 2008).

After becoming the first Alabama team to beat Texas (who was also undefeated), the Crimson Tide became only the second BCS champion to have a 14-0 final record.

In the BCS title game against Texas they beat college football’s winningest quarterback in Colt McCoy; and just two weeks before that the Tide harassed Florida’s Tim Tebow – perhaps the best college football player ever – into submission. Shutting those two down consecutively was an awesome achievement by the Alabama defense.

On their way to that rare 14-0 season, the Crimson Tide beat: The Big 12 champion, the BCS Sugar Bowl winner, the Cotton Bowl winner, the Outback Bowl winner, the Chick-Fil-A winner, and the Liberty Bowl victor.

If that’s not convincing enough, four of their opponents had coaches who’ve won national titles.

Alabama also beat elite teams from the SEC, ACC, and the Big 12 this year, while also going undefeated in 24 regular season outings during the last two.

During those undefeated regular seasons the Tide ran-off 16 straight regular season conference wins (8 on the road) in a league billed as the nation’s toughest.

Other indicators point to Alabama’s greatness as well:

This 2009 Bama squad had the most All-Americans (6) ever assembled in one year on a team.

Alabama pulled off the ultra-rare feat of producing a Heisman trophy winner the same year they took the national crown.

And finally, you can’t overlook the fact that Alabama’s head coach, Nick Saban is the only coach in the AP era to win the national championship at two schools.

Throw all that in with the way Alabama absolutely dominated most opponents this past Fall – many without breaking a sweat (kudos to Auburn for Bama’s toughest game), and it’s pretty clear that the 2009 Crimson Tide football team should be considered one of the greatest of all time.