Alabama is a national championship contender every year under Nick Saban. That’s just the way it is, and he’s showing no signs of slowing down.

Since Saban’s program became a national force in 2008, Alabama has played only six games where they were no longer in contention for a national title. Four of those were in 2010, after LSU eliminated Bama from contention in the SEC West.

And while the casual fan probably reduces Saban’s Alabama to an amorphous, faceless killing machine, each season has been distinct, and each team has possessed its own personality. We’re ranking Saban’s top-5 squads at Alabama, using a combination of some advanced analytics and my own personal memory bank.

Just for the record, I had way too much fun doing this.

The 2008 team didn’t make our top-5 list, but it deserves a mention. It ripped through the SEC basically out of nowhere, thumping Clemson in the opener, hastening the demise of Tommy Bowden and inadvertently jump-starting the Dabo Sweeney era (something that will undoubtedly come up if these two meet in January). Then they went on the road to beat Matt Stafford and Georgia, landing in the top-5 for the rest of the season. They also snapped a five-year losing streak against LSU and a six-year skid vs. Auburn and got three more SEC head coaches — Phil Fulmer, Sylvester Croom and Tommy Tuberville — out the door by season’s end. And if Dont’a Hightower doesn’t grab Tim Tebow’s facemask in the fourth quarter of the SEC Championship Game, maybe they finish in the top-5. I have many favorite Alabama teams, but this one ranks right up there.

Here the five best teams in the Saban era, in reverse order:

No. 5 – 2013 Alabama Crimson Tide

Record/Rank: (11-2 overall, 7-1 in the SEC, Associated Press No. 7)
Strength of schedule: 35th
All-Americans: HaHa Clinton-Dix, Cyrus Kouandjio, A.J. McCarron, C.J. Mosley
The skinny: In retrospect, this is arguably the most complete team of the entire Nick Saban era. The 2013 Tide averaged over 450 yards per game (32nd nationally), surrendered fewer than 290 yards (4th) and barely faced a challenge between its September trip to Texas A&M and the November showdown with Auburn. Even after its two losses, Alabama still ranked No. 3 in the final Sagarin ratings, and No. 2 in Football Outsiders’ F/+ ratings.

No. 4 – 2014 Alabama Crimson Tide

Record/Rank: (12-2 overall, 8-1 in the SEC, SEC Champions, AP No. 4)
Strength of schedule: 5th
All-Americans: Amari Cooper, Landon Collins, Trey DePriest, Arie Kouandjio, J.K. Scott
The skinny: Probably the biggest surprise of the Saban Era almost from the word go. Alabama opened the season with Blake Sims at quarterback, something no one outside the locker room expected to happen. And it worked. Bama finished the year ninth nationally in yards per game, as new offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin wore defenses out with his new toy, wide receiver Amari Cooper. Cooper’s biggest night was against Auburn in November, when he caught 13 passes for 224 yards and three touchdowns and basically got Ellis Johnson fired as Auburn’s defensive coordinator. Sure, the team got ambushed in the inaugural College Football Playoff by Ohio State, but Sagarin still placed it third overall, while the F/+ ratings slotted them at No. 2.

No. 3 – 2012 Alabama Crimson Tide

Record/Rank: (13-1 overall, 7-1 in the SEC, SEC Champions, BCS Champions, AP National Champions)
Strength of schedule: 14th
All-Americans: D.J. Fluker, Barrett Jones, Dee Milliner, C.J. Mosley, Chance Warmack
The skinny: The 2012 Alabama team will always be a special one for two reasons, the LSU game and the SEC Championship Game against Georgia. In the first, Bama rallied after a dismal second half on one of the great drives in the history of the program, culminating with AJ McCarron’s screen pass to T.J. Yeldon.

In the second, the Tide rallied from a 21-10 third-quarter deficit on the backs of Yeldon and Eddie Lacy — one of the rare moments in which the coaching staff realized, “Wait, why don’t we just run between the tackles for 10 yards every snap?” — before taking the lead for good on a McCarron pass to Cooper, then a freshman.

As an added bonus, Bama capped off the season by burying a badly overrated Notre Dame team, something longtime Alabama fans have been wanting to see their team do since 1966.

A fun note: In the final F/+ ratings for 2012, the team that ranked 2nd in the nation behind Alabama was, yes, Texas A&M, the team that handed Bama its lone loss that season.

No. 2 – 2011 Alabama Crimson Tide

Record/Rank: (12-1 overall, 7-1 in the SEC, BCS Champions, AP National Champions)
Strength of schedule: 17th
All-Americans: Mark Barron, Dont’a Hightower, Barrett Jones, Dre Kirkpatrick, DeQuan Menzie, Trent Richardson, Courtney Upshaw
The skinny: It’s difficult to think of a defining moment for the 2011 Alabama football team, if only because they spent so much time crushing opponents underfoot, it made football somewhat boring for the casual fan. The 2011 team owns the highest Sagarin rating of any team in any other season in this decade — for whatever you think that’s worth — and probably fielded the most future NFL talent of any team. The 2011 team has a pretty obvious blight on its record: It shared a division with the other best team in the country (LSU), and a mixture of poor coaching, untimely turnovers and abysmal special teams play cost them the first meeting with the Tigers. They got it back, of course in the title game rematch, but I bet that Game of the Century really bothers Nick Saban during whatever period of the day he calls “sleep.”

No. 1 – 2009 Alabama Crimson Tide

Record/Rank: (14-0, 8-0 in the SEC, SEC Champions, BCS Champions, AP National Champions)
Strength of schedule: 2nd
All-Americans: Javier Arenas, Terrence Cody, Mark Ingram, Mike Johnson, Rolando McClain, Leigh Tiffin
The skinny: Anybody who knows me or has read my stories in the past probably knew I’d rank this team No. 1. Narratives don’t do much better than Alabama in 2009: The program that had risen from the ashes of the early 2000s, that hung on by its fingernails to beat Tennessee, LSU and Auburn (all in the fourth quarter), that gained redemption by hammering Tim Tebow and Florida in the SEC Championship Game, then capped everything by beating Texas — previously undefeated vs. Alabama — in the Rose Bowl, of all places, for the national championship.

That was a uniquely special moment, for a uniquely special group.

And no, I don’t think it’s appropriate to talk about Colt McCoy’s injured shoulder, at least for now.