Alabama Crimson Tide 2011/2012 One of the Great Teams of All Time

Did anyone rank Alabama Number One after the regular season?

We did, in the 

Final Pre-Bowl College Football Rankings and Ratings 2011 FBS by SportPundit

The foolish pre-game hype about a split championship etc. can stop now. Your average football pundit -- and that includes many of the nation's sportscasters -- was way off the mark in assessing  the actual quality of the BCS game finalists.

We wrote previously that the SportPundit Rankings and Ratings 2011 FBS After Week 14 of Play favored the Crimson Tide over the Tigers by 7 points in the BCS national championship game and that all other things equal, the Crimson Tide had the better offense AND better defense, according our stats, and also according to stats generally used, e.g. see cfbstats.com.

Alabama had lost to LSU in the regular season game only because of botched field goals and some less-than-optimal coaching and playcalling. Sometimes the weaker team wins, and it was a credit to great coaching by Les Miles and inspired play by the Tigers that they won in the regular season. The win did not, however, make LSU the better team.

The correctness of our general statistical analysis was proven in the Alabama 21-0 shutout of LSU in the BCS national championship game, in which the Tigers were held to 5 first downs, crossed the 50-yard only once, and were held to 93 net total yards. All the pundits should have seen the LSU weakness on offense already in the first half of the Georgia game where they were shut down completely.

This takes nothing away from the superb LSU defense, which limited 'Bama to only one touchdown late in the 4th quarter as Alabama had to settle for 5 field goals.

However, all the past hype about this LSU team as  one of the great teams of all time can now end. It is a terrific team, no doubt about that, but it lacks the offense that a great team needs to be ranked in the "great" category. That one AP writer after this bowl game still ranked LSU first in the country indicates that such biased sportscasters or sportswriters should be removed immediately as pollsters.

The yards per play stats this regular season showed that it was Alabama who had an extraordinary team that DOES rank with the great teams of all time statistically, in spite of its unfortunate regular season 9-6 loss to the Tigers.

In the BCS title game, Alabama outgained LSU 384 to 92 yards, out first-downed the Tigers 21 to 5, and averaged 5.6 yards per play on offense while holding LSU to 2.1 yards per play, a NAYPPA (net average yards per play advantage) of 3.5 yards per play against the undefeated LSU Tigers.

THAT is world-class dominance and the sign of a truly great team on both sides of the ball, defense AND offense.

Alabama thus finished the season averaging 6.5 yard per play on offense and 3.3 yards per play on defense or a NAYPPA of 3.2 yards per play. LSU all season long had nothing to compare to those stats.

When the yards per play stats are compared with the great teams of all time, this Alabama team ranks right up there. See for yourself.