The entire college football world wants to know what comes next for the Alabama Crimson Tide. Outside of Alabama football fans, most of the interest comes from hopes of a Crimson Tide demise. That Bama hate is a small price to pay for having the greatest college football program of all-time.
Looking to the future, Alabama football fans are not staring into an abyss, but there is a somewhat uncomfortable amount of unknown about the Kalen DeBoer Era. Will Alabama fall, merely stumble; or surprise the college football world and continue with championship-winning business as usual?
One way to consider an answer to the above question is to ask another question. How much does Alabama Football history matter to the success of the post-Saban era? At best, we can only guess.
A starting point to craft an educated guess is that program history matters more at Alabama than any other college football program. The simple reason why is the Alabama Crimson Tide has achieved more than any other college football program. There is actual proof for that claim.
Going back to the 1920s, there are ten finished decades of college football to measure. About a year ago, ESPN’s Bill Connelly calculated the best program in each decade going back to the 1920s. He somewhat modified his SP+ calculations and applied them to the top teams for each decade. Connelly measured the decades in a 0-9 format. For example, 1920-1929 was the first decade Connelly chose to calculate.
