CFB Most Influential Programs
#1 Alabama Crimson Tide
School: Alabama Crimson Tide
First Game: 1892
Winning Percentage: .733 (3rd)
Appearances in AP/Rank: 874 (4th)
Average AP Ranking: 7.2
National Titles: 18
Claim to Fame: There’s too many to mention, but arguably two of college football's most successful and influential coaches in Paul “Bear” Bryant and Nick Saban applied their trade here and made Alabama national powerhouses during their tenures.
Why I have them in my Collection: With the exception of the 1950s and 1980s, Alabama has won a national title in every decade since the 1920s. I think that’s all that needs to be said about high end national consistency. The bulk of those national titles came under Bear Bryant and Nick Saban, but the Crimson Tide have other coaches with multiple national championships as well.
The Crimson Tide are also a founding member of what has objectively become the most concentrated place for football talent, the SEC. And, one could say that Alabama “helped” usher in that concentration, even if it took a while for other schools to catch on.
As mentioned in my USC article, the game between USC and Alabama is thought by many to be the game that ushered in more robust integration of schools specifically in the SEC. While Alabama had black players on their practice squad at the time, none were on varsity. Furthermore, there had to be some sort of a “see it to believe it” for fans. With Alabama’s sagging performance of late on the field they had to choose. Did they love segregation more, or winning national titles?
I guess the rest is (kind of) history. Alabama certainly did integrate their team and Bear Bryant would go on to lead the Crimson Tide to another 3 national titles in the 1970s. Then I mentioned the lean years of the 80s and apart from a single national title in 1992, Alabama was well and truly in the wilderness until Nick Saban came on in the late 2000s. Alabama had a jump start on recruiting some of the more talented black players initially, but the rest of the south had caught up by the 1990s for the most part, and we are seeing the results now since the turn of the millennium.
Since the year 2000, 14 of the 23 national titles have been won by the SEC. In fact, it's really been 14 of the last 20, and 6 of those belong to Alabama. Even with the rest of the south upping their game, the Crimson Tide remained on top, and always relevant. These are of course the Nick Saban years, a coach many consider the greatest to ever coach in college football.
So really, what else can we say about Alabama that hasn’t already been said? They have been consistently winning national titles since before the AP era. When they saw what needed to change to continue winning college football games post Civil Rights Act of 1964, coach Bear Bryant helped usher in integration to the school, even if they needed to see their butts get kicked in their own backyard for it to happen. That’s possibly an oversimplification of an incredibly complex and difficult sociological question, but we’re trying to keep these things short.
Then, Alabama more or less rose from the ashes of obscurity in the 80s and most of the 90s. It was as if Nick Saban took control of that sleeping giant and turned it into what Alabama fans always knew was in their DNA. Having two all time and innovative coaches of course helps in making your program an all time great. But you also have to have some infrastructure there too. Alabama’s obsession with college football as a state and in a region just as obsessed undoubtedly helped there.
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