There have been some truly great college football teams over the past 10 years since the first College Football Playoff bracket.
The 2020 Alabama Crimson Tide went a perfect 13-0, playing a 10-game, all-SEC regular season due to the coronavirus pandemic. A year earlier, the LSU Tigers went 15-0 to capture their third national championship of the 21st century behind their own deep pool of talent, including quarterback Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase.
And a year before LSU’s dominant season, the Clemson Tigers became the first 15-0 team in major college football history. Dabo Swinney’s team capped a perfect season by taking Alabama to the woodshed in the national championship game, 44-16.
Then there’s the Georgia Bulldogs‘ perfect 2022 season that also ended with a 15-0 record and a national championship, the second in a row for Kirby Smart’s program after a 41-year title drought.
Any of those teams would make a case for the best ever individual team, but according to ESPN senior writer Bill Connelly, the honor goes to Nick Saban’s 2020 Alabama squad. The Crimson Tide edged out 2019 LSU for the top spot in Connelly’s rankings (subscription required) of all 52 individual teams that have made the CFP since 2014, including those in this year’s 12-team bracket.
As Connelly noted, Alabama boasted three of the top five finishers in the Heisman Trophy voting, including Heisman winner DeVonta Smith. The closest contest the Tide played in all season was the SEC Championship Game against Dan Mullen’s Florida Gators, a 52-46 shootout in Atlanta.
It was a strange year for everyone, especially for Alabama. Saban missed the 2020 Iron Bowl against Auburn after testing positive for COVID-19, but the Crimson Tide beat Gus Malzahn’s Tigers just fine with Steve Sarkisian serving as interim coach, 42-13.
Alabama didn’t end its regular season against Auburn, though. Because of the scheduling quirks that year, the Crimson Tide closed out the regular season with a trip to Fayetteville and a 52-3 win over the Arkansas Razorbacks.
Alabama would go on to crush Ohio State, 52-24, in the national championship game at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami.
With the playoff expanding to 12 teams for the first time in 2024, there’s some new blood that will have a chance to win a championship they otherwise wouldn’t have. But with all but one team in the playoff having suffered at least one loss already, it’s hard to imagine any of them topping Alabama’s 2020 team as the best in anyone’s rankings.