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Is Alabama ruining CFB?

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Ol 'Bammy's last losing record 6-7 was in 2003. Their last single digit win team (7-5) was 2007, Saban's first season. They have had only 1 finish with less than 11 wins, which was 10 wins, since 2008.

They're getting pretty old.

I don't know if they are ruining college football but they sure are ruining my evening.

I'm all for celebrating excellence, but I'm also into competition and college football currently isn't a great product. About 3-4 teams annually have a legitimate shot at winning the whole thing. I am not sure what to do about it. The talent needs to be dispersed among more teams, but you can't force guys to go to certain schools. But this isn't interesting to watch.
 
Alabama will suck at football again one day. It just won’t be this year, or the next, or the next...

Bama will not be dominant forever. Same with the Patriots. Sports are more popular when there are dynasties to love or hate. Best case scenario is having another dynasty to compete with the. The Steelers/Cowboys rivalry of the 70s helped increase the NFL's popularity.
Get better, not bitter
Don't be bitter-get better. There is nothing Saban did at Bama that the right person at the right school couldn't replicate. Saban is a good coach who surrounds himself with outstanding coaches.
 
Should have been aTm instead of asterisk tosu

Oh, the irony. Oklahoma has been the laughing stock of the CFP. OSU competed well with Bama in the first half last night. Bama's offense is one of the best in the history of college football. They would have hung 70 on ANY team from the Tiny 12.
 
I'm all for celebrating excellence, but I'm also into competition and college football currently isn't a great product. About 3-4 teams annually have a legitimate shot at winning the whole thing. I am not sure what to do about it. The talent needs to be dispersed among more teams, but you can't force guys to go to certain schools. But this isn't interesting to watch.
LIke back when there were the Yankees and everyone else in baseball. Ruined the game.
 
Iowa wrestling was like this under Gable. Everyone hated Iowa and guess what, other programs improved with Iowa guys and started competing at a high level to either be more competitive or start beating Iowa.
agree 100%. When Iowa was winning titles year after year everyone said we were ruining college wrestling.
Other schools should endeavor to Iowa’s level. Iowa (Alabama) shouldn’t have to come down to theirs.
 
College basketball has more parity and I think that a large part of it is due to one-and-dones. There's a place for a team without future NBA stars but solid players that have developed as individual players and as a team over several seasons. (There's one in Iowa City right now.) One-and-done programs that attract the greatest talent can be very good, but less talented veteran teams that just play good basketball can beat them.

The NFL has a great set up now where the best players develop for three seasons in college. They don't have to risk a high draft pick on a player with great talent before he's had a chance to develop it. I think that if the NFL drafted kids one year out of high school (like the NBA), it would probably help parity in college football. However, he current set-up is in the best interest of the NFL and probably in the best interest of the players themselves (in the long run), so parity in college football is probably going to continue to suffer as a result.
 
Ol 'Bammy's last losing record 6-7 was in 2003. Their last single digit win team (7-5) was 2007, Saban's first season. They have had only 1 finish with less than 11 wins, which was 10 wins, since 2008.

They're getting pretty old.

I don't know if they are ruining college football but they sure are ruining my evening.
They’ve played their fair share (and maybe then some) of dogs during those runs too. Both in and out of the conference.
 
agree 100%. When Iowa was winning titles year after year everyone said we were ruining college wrestling.
Other schools should endeavor to Iowa’s level. Iowa (Alabama) shouldn’t have to come down to theirs.
One difference that is pretty major. I don’t know what the rule was in the 80s, but nowadays schools are only allowed 9.9 scholarships to be handed out for wrestling. There are 10 weight classes. That means that you can’t even put an entire lineup on full scholarship and have to tactically use fractional scholarships and walk ons to fill out your roster.

That would be like saying football teams are only allowed 21.8 scholarships and allowing fractional scholarships. To fill out an 85 player roster you’ve got to get creative on distribution and rely on a lot of walkons. That would create a lot of parity in football because many players can’t afford college without that full ride, so that would spread the talent out to more schools.
 
The NFL system mandates parity of talent with draft and free agency. Talent acquisition in college is unbalanced with programs like Bama enjoying a huge edge.
According to yesterday's Wall Street Journal since 2010 Bama has signed 10% of all top 100 recruits!
Imagine Iowa signing 10 top 100 recruits on a single year..or in a decade. I do not think the Hawks have ever signed a top.100 recruit outside of Epenesa.
 
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Get better. How bad do you want to be good? Do you hire ‘analysts’ who get hired elsewhere as a HC? There doesn’t appear to be an end in site but you know Dabo will be back, who else wants to step up?
 
There is such a massive chasm between AL and the rest of the field.

There is no parity and its boring.

How do others feel/think?
I think Clemson will continue to be right there with them. The loss of Lawrence will hurt for a bit but they will be back.
 
Idk about ruining CFB because eventually all dynasties come to an end. But just for me, the entertainment value of CFB outside of the B1G has dropped off considerably due to the lack of parity.
 
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Bama will not be dominant forever. Same with the Patriots. Sports are more popular when there are dynasties to love or hate. Best case scenario is having another dynasty to compete with the. The Steelers/Cowboys rivalry of the 70s helped increase the NFL's popularity.
Get better, not bitter
Don't be bitter-get better. There is nothing Saban did at Bama that the right person at the right school couldn't replicate. Saban is a good coach who surrounds himself with outstanding coaches.


I still remember Saban at Michigan State. A good coach but not near the results he is getting at Alabama. It takes the right person at the right place at the right time.
 
expanding the playoffs to several more teams will help tremendously with creating parity in the college game.

I agree.. the college playoffs currently are NOT exciting, at all
 
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CFB is the same as it has always been. It is ruled by a few teams at the top any everyone else just fights for scraps. Expanding playoffs doesn't create parity. What creates parity is reducing scholarships and other things that will limit the ability of the top schools to just hoard all the players.
 
Did
There is such a massive chasm between AL and the rest of the field.

There is no parity and its boring.

How do others feel/think?
Iowa Wrestling ruin college wrestling...Iowa was dominant for years , but I would argue it made college wrestling better....This is a cycle, it will even out.
 
There's a number of things that contribute to competitive imbalance.
  • One is that while there are rules against paying players, it's well known not everyone follows that rule as well as others.
  • Another is an issue with over-signing.
    • Teams are allowed 85 scholarship players. If you expect players to stay at the program for 4-5 years, that would mean you'd average 17-22 scholarship players being signed every year.
    • Comparing Iowa to Alabama, over the last 4 recruiting classes (2017-2020) averaged over 25 signees per year, whereas Iowa has averaged 22. That's an additional 12 scholarship players that Alabama has signed and ran through their program. Considering Alabama's signees are already ranked higher, allowing Alabama 3 more signees per period makes it virtually impossible for a program like Iowa to compete.
    • While schools are generally supposed to honor scholarships for athletes so long as they are performing well academically and participating in mandatory athletic activities, it is well known that many coaches encourage "underperforming" players to transfer - essentially giving recruits a tryout period, and if they aren't cutting it then they'll promise their scholarship to an incoming freshman.
    • Solution(s) to Over-signing:
      • Perhaps we could revisit the need for scholarship limits at all. Scholarship limits were imposed to help improve competitive balance so that the top-tier schools couldn't simply hoard talent. However, now that the transfer portal makes it easier to transfer between schools and more leniency is given for players to play right away after their first transfer, the need for scholarship limits may no longer be necessary. All players want to play, and so long as players don't feel "stuck" at a school that they have little opportunity of seeing the field at, then maybe we don't need scholarship limits. This would allow schools like Iowa to sign a number of additional players that they think have potential, but perhaps they don't have available scholarships to offer.
      • I don't think removing scholarship limits would help, however, and in fact could have the opposite effect. Instead, I think the scholarship limit should be amended to be an annual limit for incoming freshmen, rather than having a limit for 85 total players. For example, you could say that every school gets to sign 25 incoming freshmen every year. You don't get to sign more just because you had a number of guys transfer or leave early. I think this is a simpler scholarship limit to implement and removes incentives for coaches to promise Player 1 (Junior)'s scholarship to Player 2 (incoming freshmen) because the coach doesn't think Player 1 lived up to his potential.
 
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There's a number of things that contribute to competitive imbalance.
  • One is that while there are rules against paying players, it's well known not everyone follows that rule as well as others.
  • Another is an issue with over-signing.
    • Teams are allowed 85 scholarship players. If you expect players to stay at the program for 4-5 years, that would mean you'd average 17-22 scholarship players being signed every year.
    • Comparing Iowa to Alabama, over the last 4 recruiting classes (2017-2020) averaged over 25 signees per year, whereas Iowa has averaged 22. That's an additional 12 scholarship players that Alabama has signed and ran through their program. Considering Alabama's signees are already ranked higher, allowing Alabama 3 more signees per period makes it virtually impossible for a program like Iowa to compete.
    • While schools are generally supposed to honor scholarships for athletes so long as they are performing well academically and participating in mandatory athletic activities, it is well known that many coaches encourage "underperforming" players to transfer - essentially giving recruits a tryout period, and if they aren't cutting it then they'll promise their scholarship to an incoming freshman.
    • Solution(s) to Over-signing:
      • Perhaps we could revisit the need for scholarship limits at all. Scholarship limits were imposed to help improve competitive balance so that the top-tier schools couldn't simply hoard talent. However, now that the transfer portal makes it easier to transfer between schools and more leniency is given for players to play right away after their first transfer, the need for scholarship limits may no longer be necessary. All players want to play, and so long as players don't feel "stuck" at a school that they have little opportunity of seeing the field at, then maybe we don't need scholarship limits. This would allow schools like Iowa to sign a number of additional players that they think have potential, but perhaps they don't have available scholarships to offer.
      • I don't think removing scholarship limits would help, however, and in fact could have the opposite effect. Instead, I think the scholarship limit should be amended to be an annual limit for incoming freshmen, rather than having a limit for 85 total players. For example, you could say that every school gets to sign 25 incoming freshmen every year. You don't get to sign more just because you had a number of guys transfer or leave early. I think this is a simpler scholarship limit to implement and removes incentives for coaches to promise Player 1 (Junior)'s scholarship to Player 2 (incoming freshmen) because the coach doesn't think Player 1 lived up to his potential.
It isn't an oversigning issue.
 
  • Comparing Iowa to Alabama, over the last 4 recruiting classes (2017-2020) averaged over 25 signees per year, whereas Iowa has averaged 22. That's an additional 12 scholarship players that Alabama has signed and ran through their program. Considering Alabama's signees are already ranked higher, allowing Alabama 3 more signees per period makes it virtually impossible for a program like Iowa to compete.


When you don't factor in players who leave after 3 years to the NFL for Alabama, which is easily 12 over 4 years, it makes this point completely invalid. They are missing out on the 4th year for all their top players.

It comes down to recruiting almost exclusively. They just have a ridiculous proportion of the very top recruits, which makes it nearly impossible to compete with them for 98% of the programs out there. Unfortunately the JJ Watt types who come out of no-where to be elite players are few and far between compared to the Najee Harris' of the world. It is what it is unfortunately.
 
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