Alabama’s active AP Poll streak doubles every other school but Ohio State

The Crimson Tide’s active AP Poll streak under Nick Saban is something to marvel.

In 2019, Alabama found itself on the outside of the College Football Playoff looking in, surely a strange feeling given the annual championship expectations the Crimson Tide face under Nick Saban’s legendary leadership. The Tide still managed to go 11-2 with a No. 8 finish in the AP Poll last season, however, which is nothing to sneeze at.

And a closer look at just how long they’ve been a mainstay of AP voting reveals the extent to which the rest of the FBS is still ultimately looking up at Bama.

Only Ohio State has been continuously ranked in the AP college football top 25 even half as long as the Alabama Crimson Tide’s 196 weeks

Even the venerable programs at Clemson, LSU, and Oklahoma cannot measure up to half of the Tide’s active AP Poll consistency.

If anything, these cold, hard facts ought to cast Ohio State in an especially favorable light. 131 weeks is about a decade’s worth of seasons, after all, and the only rival to the Buckeyes’ Big Ten supremacy in the 2010’s was the trio of Wisconsin teams that took conference gold under Bret Bielema.

They’ve got a national title to their name over that span, too, something that’s hard to fathom for a team that isn’t from the SEC or Clemson.

Do the Tide have work to do in order to fight back into the college football penthouse? Yes, naturally.

Replacing an all-world quarterback in Tua Tagovailoa and game-breaking skill players like Jerry Jeudy and Henry Ruggs is a mountain of a task. But under this iconic head coach, perhaps Shakespeare would say this program is as constant as the northern star.

While Julius Caesar did get himself assassinated, you can bet that Julius Saban has every intention of re-conquering the landscape and proving yet again that nothing beats a rock-solid foundation for annual excellence.