The 50 greatest college football teams throughout history

40. Best college football teams of all-time: 1992 Alabama

This team’s spot on the list comes with an interesting backstory, to boot.

Not only was this Alabama team an incredibly skilled group of individual players and coaches, reigning in even ahead of the current Alabama dynasty, but the backstory leading up to their season and especially their national championship is an incredibly entertaining story.

The Crimson Tide team may not have been one of the most spectacular or flashy Alabama teams to capture a national championship (that’s a pretty stacked list, in itself), but the 1992 team had one goal:

Show up to the game and beat you into the ground.

The team came into the season knowing that they’d have a top-tier defense, also returning five starters on the offensive line and impressive depth at the skill positions. In what now seems like an egregious error, the Crimson Tide started the season ranked in the No. 9 spot nationally.

Alabama went on to win and win again and again. They shut down just about every offense along the way, en route to a 13-0 season. After weeks of national media back-and-forth, they defeated Miami, at the time the football dynasty, in the national championship game, by a massive 34-13 score, cementing their place on this list.

This team paired receivers taking one-yard passes for 60-plus yard touchdowns, with a stellar defense and celebrated their program’s 100th year of existence with a national championship season, in true Crimson Tide football fashion.