Tim Tebow Makes Bold Call: 2018 Alabama Could Be Greatest NCAAF Team of All Time
Are we witnessing the greatest college football team of all time every time the Alabama Crimson Tide take the field?
That’s what Heisman winner and ESPN analyst Tim Tebow is hypothesizing based on the team’s dominance thus far.
Alabama still has six games to play (at most) including the Iron Bowl vs. Auburn, the SEC Championship vs. Georgia and two games in the College Football Playoff. But if the Tide continue to roll through those games as they did through their first nine games, Tebow says they will deserve to be in the GOAT discussion.
“They have to come through in the clutch, in the SEC Championship and the College Football Playoff, and they have to dominate in that,” Tebow said Friday on ESPN’s “First Take. “But if they continue on this path? I think I would have them up there competing for No. 1 (all time). I think you have to.
“The dominance that they have displayed — especially last week, at Death Valley, against the No. 3 team in the country (LSU). I think I would have ’95 Nebraska with Tommie Frazier, I think I would have maybe 2001 Miami. Maybe a couple other teams. But if Alabama finishes, you’ve got to put them up there.”
Tebow mentioned past great teams from Nebraska and Miami but not his two Florida teams that won the BCS championship in 2006 and 2008.
Stephen A. Smith asked Tebow if that was his way of saying that this Alabama team would beat either of those Gator teams.
“I never said we would be out, OK? I never said that. You always believe in your squad, and I believe in my boys. We would have come strapped ready to play, Stephen A,” the former Heisman winner said.
Alabama currently has a margin of victory of 37.2 points per game. That’s just behind 1995 Nebraska, whose margin of victory of 38.6 points is the largest of any team since World War II.
That is despite both teams regularly resting their starters in the second half. Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is the Heisman frontrunner even though he hadn’t played a fourth-quarter snap until last week’s 29-0 win at LSU.
Clemson is No. 2 in the CFP poll, but the Tigers coach says Alabama is a cut above his team or anyone else’s.
“The reality of it is, back when I was a player we kind of had the big-time bus and then the ROY bus — the Rest of Y’all — it is kind of Alabama and the rest of ya’ll,” Dabo Swinney said. “We are just kind of glad to be on the ROY bus right now and to still have a chance.”
With the Crimson Tide easily disposing of their biggest challenge so far in LSU, Nick Saban says their toughest opponent now might be themselves.
“I think it’s an internal battle right now,” Saban said on his weekly radio show at Bauhower’s Victory Grille. “You play a hell of a game, you play a pretty complete game as a team. Yeah, we left a little money on the table. We shot ourselves in the foot a few times in terms of getting some penalties and backing ourselves up, not taking advantage of some situations.
“But the battle becomes internal at this time in the season. Are you going to be complacent about where you are? Are you going to continue to celebrate what you’ve accomplished in the past? Are you going to pat yourself on the back? Are you going to relax and get relief syndrome because of a job well done?
For all of the dominance Alabama has had under Saban, they haven’t run the table as often as you might think. Their only undefeated season came in 2009, which was the first of Saban’s five national championships at the school.
Perhaps that is motivation enough to avoid complacency within the team.
But even if Alabama runs the table and can make a case as the greatest college football team of all time, no one is picking them to beat the Buffalo Bills.
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