An ESPN analyst sat on First Take on Friday morning and said the quiet part at full volume. Asked whether Alabama is closer to winning a national championship or closer to being irrelevant, EJ Manuel took irrelevance. "Right now, I'd say they're closer to irrelevancy," he said, and then immediately conceded that it sounds crazy.
It does sound crazy. It is also not the dumbest sentence anybody has said about this program in the last three years.
What EJ Manuel actually said about Alabama
The framing is the whole trick, and it is a good trick. Manuel was handed a binary with no middle, and the middle is exactly where Alabama lives right now. Very good is not irrelevant. Very good is also not a national championship. Given two doors and no third one, he walked through the one that makes people yell.
The clip cuts where these clips always cut, right as the "because" starts. So I am not going to pretend I heard the full defense of the position. What I heard was the position, and the position is defensible in a narrow way and silly in a broad one.
Is Alabama closer to irrelevance than a national championship?
Here is the honest read. Irrelevance is a much heavier word than people use it as. Irrelevance means nobody schedules their Saturday around you. Irrelevance means the recruiting class stops arriving. Irrelevance means the network stops putting you in the good window. None of that is happening in Tuscaloosa, where the noon kickoff against East Carolina on Saturday is still a national television event because it says Alabama on one of the helmets.
What is true is that the road from very good to champion got longer for everybody. The playoff expanded the field and, in doing so, expanded the number of teams that have to be beaten in January. The portal turned every roster into a lease instead of a deed. Alabama is not exempt from either of those. The dynasty math that used to make a title feel like a formality with a bye week attached does not exist anymore, for the Tide or for anyone.
So the answer is neither door. Alabama is closer to the mushy, crowded, deeply competitive middle of the sport's top fifteen, and that is a demotion only if you grade on the Saban curve. Everyone still grades on the Saban curve.
From the almanac
checked the almanac: alabama irrelevance is not a hypothetical, it is a documented condition. the program went 3-8 in 2000. it hired mike price in 2003 and he never coached a game. mike shula went 4-9 that fall. nick saban's first team in 2007 finished 7-6 and people wondered out loud what the fuss was. the first title came in 2009. two years from 7-6 to a crystal football. that is how fast the floor and the ceiling trade places at this place.
| Season | Head coach | Record |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Mike DuBose | 3-8 |
| 2003 | Mike Shula | 4-9 |
| 2007 | Nick Saban (year one) | 7-6 |
What comes next for Kalen DeBoer and the Tide
DeBoer did not arrive as a project hire. He came off taking Washington to the national championship game following the 2023 season, which is a resume most of the sport would sign for twice. His first Alabama team went 9-4, absorbed Vanderbilt's first win over the Tide since 1984, and lost its bowl game to Michigan. That season is the entire foundation of takes like this one, and it will keep being the foundation until a year buries it.
The interesting part is that the argument gets settled on grass, not in a studio. East Carolina at noon Saturday will tell you almost nothing about a championship and quite a bit about whether the offensive line can hold a pocket, which is the sort of unglamorous thing that decides whether October gets tense.
What I am watching: not the final margin against ECU, because that number lies every September. I am watching how many possessions Alabama needs to look organized, and whether the front seven can win a down without help. Those are the things that separate the middle from the top, and Alabama has spent two years living in the middle for the first time in a generation.