Alabama football: The 2020 Crimson Tide are the greatest team in program history
As the confetti rained down in Miami Gardens on Monday night and yet another would-be contender to the throne headed to the airport with nothing but a good story to tell their grandkids, the kings of college football assembled 1 more time to perform a ritual that is practically spelled out in the recruiting brochure …
Collect another national championship trophy.
Many of the Alabama Crimson Tide players, coaches and staff have done this before, we all know — 17 times, to be precise — before Monday inside Hard Rock Stadium. In a college football season that almost wasn’t, there were plenty of things that looked the same as it ever was.
Alabama was there in the College Football Playoff national title game to play, to finish, to make Ohio State’s proverbial rear end quit in a 52-24 beating. This business trip to South Florida was just that, to pick up more crystal and oblong-football gold trophies to the point that non-NC trophies could be used as doorstops around the Mal M. Moore Football Building.
And when it was all said and done, with Alabama having finished penning Chapter 13 of Joyless Murderball and singing yet another verse of “Rammer Jammer” in the home of the Miami Dolphins, it became increasingly clear that this 2020 Crimson Tide team earned something even more than another ring.
The honor of becoming the greatest football team in Alabama Crimson Tide history.
That isn’t an easy statement to write. Surely those who played on the undefeated 2009 team that went out to the Rose Bowl and smacked around Texas for the Tide’s 13th title would join the debate. Old-school fans might say the 1992 team — which went 13-0 with perhaps the most dominant defense in school history — was tougher. Another generation would suggest Paul W. Bryant’s 1979 team that went undefeated, or even Bryant’s 1961 squad that also went undefeated. And if you’re truly old-school, you could even throw in the 1966 Tide that got jobbed out of national title contention despite winning it all in 1964 *and* 1965 along with all 11 of its games that season.
Those teams are worthy of the conversation, sure. But what none of those teams had was the offensive firepower that the 2020 Tide did, the heart that the 2020 Tide showed in sweeping through the SEC gantlet without a single significant player loss due to COVID-19, and the passion the 2020 Tide required to run the table despite a gigantic bulls-eye on their back.
Where to begin? DeVonta Smith won the Heisman Trophy with perhaps the most dominant wide receiving performance in college football history. Smith ended the CFP title game with 12 receptions for 214 yards and 3 touchdowns — all coming in the 1st half before he departed following the Tide’s opening possession of the 3rd quarter with a hand injury. He finished with 23 TD catches this season, an SEC record, and 1,856 yards, another SEC record. Smith ended his unforgettable career — a career that began on the national stage by hauling in Tua Tagovailoa’s 2nd-and-26 dart to win the 2017 national title — with a school- and SEC-record 46 career touchdown receptions that also ranks 5th all-time across NCAA teams. He finished with 3,964 receiving yards on 235 receptions.
Quarterback Mac Jones finished 3rd in the Heisman voting, behind Smith and Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence with an unforgettable season of his own. The junior will likely head to the NFL after throwing for exactly 4,500 yards and 41 touchdowns against just 4 interceptions. Jones dissected Ohio State for 464 passing yards and 5 touchdowns despite seemingly never having to make a difficult throw. The literal afterthought in Alabama’s quarterback room behind Tua Tagovailoa and Jalen Hurts, Jones did what neither Alabama’s sweet Hawaiian prince nor the starting quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles did — go wire-to-wire to win it all.
Najee Harris? All the multi-purpose running back did en route to finishing 5th in the Heisman voting was rush for 1,466 yards in his senior season on 251 carries and score 26 touchdowns. Harris heads to the league having finished with 3,843 rushing yards and 46 rushing scores, and 781 receiving yards on 80 receptions with 11 more scores.
That trio alone literally rewrote the Alabama record book. And when you throw in wide receiver Jaylen Waddle, who returned to the field for the CFP title game after breaking his ankle earlier in the season against Tennessee, the Crimson Tide could see 4 skill-position players be selected in the 1st round of the NFL Draft come April. Throw in left tackle Alex Leatherwood, and a true handful of Alabama players could go on the first night of the draft.
The Buckeyes defense will someday regale the young’uns about how they almost had DeVonta Smith on a tackle, about how they got a hand on Mac Jones in Miami and how Najee Harris tripped over them on another bruising run. The Ohio State offense will take up the same chorus that Texas did in 2009 when quarterback Colt McCoy went down with an injury, rueing the 1st-quarter injury to running back Trey Sermon with a million “what ifs?”
Ohio State joined Notre Dame, Florida, Arkansas, LSU, Auburn, Kentucky, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Georgia, Ole Miss, Texas A&M and Missouri with those stories. The strongest top-to-bottom conference in college football develops national championship contenders every season, but even the incredible performance put forth by LSU in 2019 somehow felt different than Alabama did in 2020.
It was telling to see what Landon Dickerson — a transfer from Florida State who earned the respect, admiration and love from his teammates — did immediately after backup QB Bryce Young knelt on the football for the final time Monday night. No matter a blown-out knee that required surgery, Dickerson snapped the ball the final 2 times of 2020 and headed directly to a drenched-by-Gatorade Nick Saban.
With confetti flying and players joyous all around, Dickerson embraced Saban and lifted him as high as he could over his head — carrying the 69-year-old legend toward midfield in glory.
The Death Star had fired its final shot of the 2020 season.
The job was done. A team can’t win any more games than that, and hasn’t won them all more decisively than this team did.
“This is the ultimate team,” Saban said.
And finally, the coach was smiling.
If only we could schedule a game between this team and ‘19 LSU
Even last years Alabama squad only lost by a score.
In Tuscaloose…
Play that game on neutral site with big 12 refs and its a blowout.
Can’t “blowout” imagination.
You mean like the blow out you predicted for the Tide by OSU. It’s going to be a long bitter off season for you.
What a load of crap, but unsurprising considering it comes from the dunce that told everyone that Clemson was winning the national championship. Alabama would blast that 2019 LSU team. Your OL is a joke (notice, no first rounders, and Lloyd Cushenberry is the worst center in the NFL). No one cares about 2019 any more. The dust is going to get really thick on that trophy, because Rapist U. isn’t coming near another one anytime soon.
Second thought, maybe we could play the game in Tiger Stadium, where Alabama has outscored LSU 84-17 in the last two meetings. It wouldn’t matter anyhow, because all of the quitters on LSU would “opt out” before the contest anyhow. What is it like to be a fan of a team that no one really wants to play for?
And last time I checked smith Harris and all of em were on last years tide team
Joe Burrow was on the 2018 Loserana State team. You know, the one that didn’t score against Alabama. What’s your point?
55-17, loser.
We did have Mack Jones, but only after Tua went down with season ending injuries. He was thrown into the starting position without in-depth starting experience.
Last Yeats Alabama squad didn’t play in the playoffs!!!! They lost to LSU and AUBURN!!! In fact this is the squad that lost to auburn who lost to UGA!!!
THE WHOLE SEC KEEPS GETTING LUCKY AVOIDING UGA AT THEIR BEST!!! With Alabama it was lots of injuries and STETSON BENNETT!!!! And again terrible calls!
With LSU it was tons of injuries and the UGA offense was the same one that started the season!!! Still LSU was legit!!!!
With FLORIDA there were so many injuries and so many backups and first time players in the game as well as Stetson Bennett. THE MEDIA SHOULD HAVE BEEN ASHAMED TO SAY FLORIDA PLAYED UGA! And the media should have retracted the story THAT FLORIDA BEAT UGA!!!
Florida didn’t play the real UGA. So how could they have possibly beaten them????
PS. I’M PUTTING THE MEDIA ON NOTICE. SOON AND VERY SOON. UGA IS COMING TO EVEN THE SCORE AND TAKE WHAT HAS BEEN OURS SINCE THE ROBBERY OF 2017!!!!!!!
That goes for you to Kristen Saban Setas, you loudmouth bully b???h!!!!
King Negan
Years not Yeats
hahahahaha…..you’ve lost it dude
You’re an idiot I hope you know that. You got blown out by Bama when you were at full strength, AND by Florida. You allowed Florida to score 44 points on you, only Bama, Arkansas, and Ole Miss allowed Florida to score more points on them. Supposedly Georgia is the most talented team in the nation, yet you take out a few of their starters, and the UF offense wrecks them??? Vandy’s defense, Missouri’s defense, Tennessee’s defense, LSU’s defense, and Kentucky’s defense all performed much better against UF’s offense than Georgia’s. Take that L and shut up. Georgia was garbage this year. You barely survived Cincinnati (the 59th most talented team in the country) only because Cincinnati made a horrible play call to pass instead of running the ball. Had they ran the ball Georgia would have ran out of time and lost and everybody knows it. Can’t wait to see you be exposed by Clemson next year, and drop another L to Florida and maybe some other garbage team… I mean you know Kirby, he usually drops an L to some bad team.
Your post makes me think you’re one of Negans multiple accounts Imperial…
anand……..You did and LOST TO THEM ALL. Which was funny after losing 3 straight to UGA before finally beating THEIR BACKUPS!!!
King Negan
Alabama is to be congratulated NOW! Regardless of the egg clemson laid. OSU was an injured football team. But they were still 7-0 and questionable as to whether they should have even been in the playoffs!!!!
The real UGA would have been a much better opponent! But you’ll get to see that FIRST HAND IN A FEW MONTHS! As UGA officially rains on your parade!!!
I know he is thinking seriously about it. I just hope coach Saban doesn’t OPT OUT BEFORE KIRBY OFFICIALLY KICKS HIS A$$!!! UGA ALREADY DID IT ONCE IN 2017 AND IT WAS STOLEN!!!! It won’t be close enough to get stolen next season!!! THAT IS IF ALABAMA MAKES IT TO THE SEC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME! REGARDLESS WHOEVER WINS THAT GAME. HAS KICKED SABANS A$$ EVEN IF HE DOESN’T MAKE IT!!!!
I hope Kristen Saban Setas gets to watch the game to!!!! I hope her daddy doesn’t OPT OUT OR PUSH THE GAME BACK!!! Like he and Dan Mullen cried about the regular season meeting between Florida and Alabama and got it CANCELLED!!!!
If that game wasn’t canceled you would have gotten to play THE REAL SEC EAST WINNER!!!! And the way y’all played. I have no doubt UGA would have kicked your a$$!!!!!!!!
PS. This season started late. I’ll see you in a few months!!! UGA IS GOING TO TOTALLY DOMINATE ON THEIR WAY TO THE NEW DYNASTY IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL!!!!
UGA 2021/22 NATIONAL CHAMPIONS AND DYNASTY BEYOND THAT!!!
King Negan
Dude whatever drugs you consume please, please stop just stop it!!! You wrote a book just to say nothing! You need to be punished by tying you up and make you spend one night in the Bryant Denny Museum on Alabama Campus making you look at all the championship trophies… Have a good day you dilusional Ga Fan
Roll Tide
“Dad, what’s a flood pattern?”
“I don’t know son, we’re Georgia fans!”
Go away negan. Bama owns your a$$!
UGA isn’t anywhere in any conversation… Do like your team and fade away till next year..
Precisely. They won’t be in the conversation next year either.
I could be wrong, but I don’t remember bama ever leading in that game. Also don’t recall bama defeating 7 top 10 teams unaffected by covid and opt outs. So this is a comparison of apples and bowling balls!!
19 LSU had the best college football player of all time. The coach of the year. The Broyles award winner. We beat 7 top 10 teams. Only 15 and O SEC team ever. The list goes on and on… not even a discussion. 2019 LSU > 2020 BAMA
2020 Tide would boat race 2019 LSU
Well they had the same team plus more with Jeudy, Ruggs , and Tua! So please explain your twisted logic. Because had Lsu played bama at home last year, it would’ve been a 20 point or more defeat! By the way who you got, Jerry Jeudy or Justin Jefferson??
I must have missed that first award for best player of all time. Is that an award that LSU gives itself each year? Coach of the year ahh and this year? You mean coach FOR the year don’t you? How do you go from National Champion to 3 wins in one year and still think you have bragging rights? One hit wonder? This year Bama set records for most SEC wins ever, how was your year? LSU, like usual, is living in the past rewriting history to give itself some value. Hell, you even lost Saban.
Bama beat an unprecedented 11 SEC teams and did not play the two weakest teams in Vandy & South Carolina. The SEC did not get their three usual cream puffs this year either. Bama beat 5 Top 10 teams but when you take the cream puffs out of the equation, the SEC takes on more losses due to attrition.
They should be glad they didn’t play MY Gamecocks! Just imagine the sheer EXHAUSTION that they would have experienced celebrating TD after TD after TD! You should thank the scheduler that you avoided us this year and were able to conserve your energies for that scrimmage against that Bee One Gee monster!!
I like that someone has a sense of humor on here
No discussion 2020 Bama > 2020 LSU.
2019 LSU didn’t come close to the awards that 2020 Alabama won, and that includes the Thorpe award that they gave to Grant Delpit, who was in fact a liability on defense. Keep sniveling all you want, but your 2019 team is now FORGOTTEN.
When you tell to an idiot at his level, it makes you an idiot. Never a good move.
Another Dilusional Fan you guys have ONE YEAR ONE YEAR!! and you want to talk sh”t. Get off our page LSu Who!! Hater!
Roll Tide
Best team ever. 2020 tide.
Bama can’t be considered the best ever due to COVID. They were by far the best at handling COVID. No opt outs and not a single player got infected. The competition was severely diminished this year and the games were played in empty stadiums. Even OSU was missing several players due to COVID.
Yada Yada Yada you hater! Covid or no covid healthy players or not who honestly had a team to legitimately compete with this Alabama team???? I’m waiting yes I thought so. Get off our page!
Roll Tide
My bad I wasn’t aware this was your page. I wasn’t saying Bama doesn’t have a great team but you have been living on another planet if you don’t think COVID severely damaged the season. It was a strange year and Bama handled it the best and were the best team this year but it’s tough to compare them to other Bama teams or any other team for that matter. Would that offense have been flawless with 100k screaming fans affecting communication? Would the fans have given the opposing teams more energy? Would other teams been more competitive with pre-season practice, no opt outs, playing full schedules, etc. Would Bama had been even better with pre-season practice and no distractions? We will never know but it is easier to compare apples to apples for teams that played in previous years.
Bama had players get sidelined for Covid and even had the HC out against Auburn..
They just didn’t cry about it..
OSU had a full team and got spanked just like everyone except FL – the Kung Fu Flu had no impact on that at all. Just acknowledge that this was a GREAT TEAM that had a GREAT YEAR! Last year it was LSU that had a Great Team and year and I’m hoping that ONE DAY – before I leave this corrupt world that I get to see both LSU and Bama fans arguing about how my Gamecock team was only the THIRD best National Champions from the SEC!!
Best ever… not even up for debate. 11 SEC wins. Enough said.
REALLY!
I would love to see the ’20 Bama vs ’19 LSU… I think ’20 Bama would win though.
Not sure about greatest of all time but that offense certainly was the best I’ve seen in MY lifetime.
And just last year I was thinking nobody would eclipse the performance LSU put on…this team certainly would have given them a run for their money.
Give me this Bama offense and the 2011 defense and I’d put THAT team up against anybody, anywhere.
Do you read??? The greatest in Alabama program history
I think he meant best college offense in his lifetime, not best Alabama offense in his lifetime.
Typical BAMA fans to make this about LSU after winning a Natty..go enjoy a perfect season and a national championship instead of trying to figure out if this years tide was better then last years tigers. Who gives a sh!t?? Does that really mean more to you guys?
Who gives a sh#t that you are trolling our page lmao. Go back to LSU you LSWho!!
Shouldn’t you be watching the transfer portal, to make sure none of your other 5 stars are jumping that sinking ship?
Well a LSU website made a meme of what Mac said last night about this team being the greatest team ever…sooo apparently it’s a pretty touchy subject for y’all
I’m projecting here, but it would seem that in the end Bama will have convincing victories over 4 of the 7 top teams in the final AP poll. LSU was lauded endlessly last year for 4 wins over the final top 8.
At a minimum, I think this Bama team and last year’s LSU squad are on equal footing in the dominance category.
LSU beat 5 of the final 8.
Right Marine – I missed OU. Still, I suspect these two squads would have bulldozed any team most days. Bama had a tight one with Florida and LSU with Auburn. Very similar in so many ways.
Definitely. This could be debated for years.
Congrats to the tide. Dominant performance and well deserved win. Alabama versus LSU team from last year? Who knows, but one thing I do know, the national championship goes through the SEC, again and again and again.
And with all those guys gone next year will be the year Alabama takes a step back, right? Right? Wait, they’re favored to win it all again?
Right!
Roll Tide
I can’t front. This year’s Alabama team is the greatest of all time. They had no cupcakes to pad stats with an all-SEC schedule. They played 11 SEC games and followed that with two wins against top-four teams.
Make no mistake, I don’t like y’all mothersuckers but respect has been earned.
We especially don’t like y’all MF”s believe that!! But thanks anyway lol
Roll Tide
congrats bama. Nice win and ho-hum another NC trophy to stuff in a room full of em. 19 LSU v 20 bama? Who cares. there is no way to prove it either way. Why even ask the question. Two great teams. Davonta sure was fun to watch but I dont know if it was him and the offense of bama or OSU’s lack of reaction to things and playing 4 LB’s instead of adding more DB’s that got him so wide open so many times. Great player for suire and not trying to take anything away from bama at all. just thought the butteye defense would have adjusted more after getting burned so much. Guess they were going to come out keying on Najee but even with that defense Najee ripped them. The much better team won.
I like the asterisks on 64 and 65… good game as expected. Hopefully Nicky hangs it up to spend time with the grand kids.
No buddy you got 10 more years of Nick!!
Roll Tide
Congrats to Bama players and fans. Another impressive run to the title. Admire how the players play with class and are very business like on the field. Bama under Saban is like the Roman empire during their prime. Go CATS!!!
LSU 2019 I think was more impressive than Bama 2020. The road environment last year was completely different and besides normal football injuries from 2019 you played teams at mostly full strength. 2020 with the lack of practices and players out for Covid related reasons makes it different than 2019. That being said I do think you can say this was one of the greatest Bama teams of all time. Best Bama offensive team all-time without question. The play calling last night was some of the best I have ever seen, its like the OSU defense forgot about #6 at times but then you watch the pre-snap motion and the genius ways they got him open and you begin to understand. It makes you wonder why OSU just didn’t designate someone to go everywhere Smith goes on every single play. Like a spy on the QB that some teams do with Lamar Jackson. It would have probably been the N. Harris show if they did that though…too many weapons to stop them all I guess.
Oh, Imagine this, coming from a Barner. Never mind that 2019 LSU only beat your team by 10, and Alabama won by 29, and could have won by at least two TD’s more, if they’d kept foot on gas entire game, the way Orgeron did last year. Of course it came back to bite him in the a$$ this season, when none of his backups had any playing experience, and were one of the worst defenses in SEC history.
Relax Ohio St, this is only week 8.
Greatest team in college football history.
I joked with people, that by resume, ND probably deserved it but if you wanted the best games, forget A& M, they should have put Ole Miss at full strength or Florida (2020 version) in as #4. Apparently, those are the only two teams capable of hanging with Alabama. We can always wonder what Clemson would have done against Alabama, but will never know if they would have played a better game. You can’t help but think they would. Ohio St made it close for a little bit, but I feel like Clemson would have been a closer match up. But I still think Alabama vs Ole Miss would have been the most exciting game
They say this just about every year about Bama. I remember the 2018 SECCG, Bama comes in having already been declared the Greatest Team of All Time. Not just Bama’s best, but the greatest ever. Well that was so wrong. I guess the media just puts out click bait these days. The media will write anything if it’ll get some page views.
Had to record the BAMA/OHIO STATE Championship game for personal reason. Woke up during the last quarter and the chance that Bama would lose was gone for sure. I went back to watch the entire game. What a piece of crap. I recorded it on ESPN. It was titled CFP Live Megacast. The worse thing ever invented by ESPN. I have a huge Sony Television. The actual game showed up smaller than this 12 by 19 inch screen on my computer. I was faced with Laura Rutledge, Dan Orlovsky, Marcus Spears, and Mina Kimes. Also a commentator Todd McShay. I began to think they were all trying to prove they were Sportscasters. The game was being telecasted alright but one could not hear the game because of the four wantta bees. They constantly ran off at the mouth and Laura Rutledge at one got into a spat with Marcus Spears over a term he used on the safeties of Ohio State. I know she never played college football, but I do know Marcus did and was an excellent player. Most fans know the refs signals for penalties, but we could not hear who was involved. Each one was attempting to prove they knew more than the other. They posted the stats of the players on both teams which took up more surface area of my television which was 32 by 58 inches. All four commentators who really didn’t tell viewers what the hell was going on except for a targeting violation on a BAMA player who was rejected. At one time Mina was sloughed over in an almost laying down position until someone notified her that she was on camera and she rapidly sat back up. SEC ESPN was almost as bad with them telecasting images of Saban on the sideline at the same time the actual game was being telecasted producing a smaller screen of the game. I feel sorry for those that could not afford a large television. The Megacast was not even worth retaining the game and I dumped it.