If Alabama doesn’t win the national championship, then it’ll be because of these 3 reasons
By John Buhler
2. Why Alabama won’t repeat: College football rarely ever sees it happen
Even though Alabama has made six of the seven College Football Playoffs to date, no Power Five program has ever repeated as national champions under this postseason format. Not Alabama, not Clemson, nobody. In fact, the last program to repeat as national champions was the Crimson Tide in 2011 and 2012. They were the only undisputed back-to-back champions of the old BCS.
For Alabama to repeat in 2012, the Crimson Tide first needed to get to the national title bout in 2011 as a non-division winner. LSU beat them during the regular season to win the SEC West and the SEC. Flash forward to next season, and Alabama was one pass away from falling to Georgia in the 2012 SEC Championship Game.
Prior to that, you would have to look at Tom Osborne’s Nebraska teams of 1994-95 as repeat champions. Those title runs predated the BCS. We still had co-champions occasionally a few seasons after that. Though Alabama may be the hunted during the Saban era, the Crimson Tide have to start the year the same way as everybody else: From the bottom of the mountain.
Attrition and the sheer difficulty of going back-to-back are two challenging factors to overcome.