There's a harsh truth that Alabama fans and the national media needs to hear
Over the last few weeks, there's been a lot of noise from the national media and Alabama football fans about the need for "change" when it comes to the transfer portal. The noise stems from Alabama's loss of numerous players to the transfer portal in the wake of Nick Saban's retirement earlier this month. The […]
Over the last few weeks, there's been a lot of noise from the national media and Alabama football fans about the need for "change" when it comes to the transfer portal.
The noise stems from Alabama's loss of numerous players to the transfer portal in the wake of Nick Saban's retirement earlier this month. The Crimson Tide lost some elite talent, including safety Caleb Downs and offensive tackle Kadyn Proctor, after Saban announced his retirement.
There's no doubt that the transfer portal needs to be addressed. But it's because it's creating a ridiculous workload for college coaches, not because of the timing of Saban's departure from Alabama.
When it comes to Alabama, the noise about change because the Crimson Tide lost so many elite players is completely ridiculous.
Because here's the thing — there are plenty of players still in the portal that Alabama could take in the immediate aftermath of Saban's retirement. There are still players looking for a home. And there will be more players that hit the portal when the spring window opens in April. Finding enough players to fill the roster won't be an issue at all for Alabama.
The problem with that scenario, though, is that those players aren't four-star and five-star players like Alabama is accustomed to having on the roster.
And Alabama fans and the national media seem to think that the Crimson Tide are "owed" an elite roster. They think that Alabama shouldn't have less-than-elite talent on their roster like programs such as Mississippi State, Arkansas, Vanderbilt, etc. And that's just complete nonsense.
There's no rule in college football that says Alabama has to have elite talent. There's no caveat in the rules that guarantees that Bama will be competing for national championships every year.
The greatest head coach of all time retired from Alabama and if players want to head elsewhere, they should be able to. Otherwise, what is the point of the portal? And if that means that Alabama only has enough talent to field a 7-6 or 8-5 team, then so be it. College football doesn't owe Alabama a damn thing. They're no different than any other FBS program, whether it's Ohio State, Wake Forest or whoever. The rules don't need to be changed because Alabama, for the first time in nearly two decades, has to face a little adversity.
Guess what? Alabama can just deal with it. Other programs have dealt with tough situations. Tennessee, specifically, has dealt with plenty of tough situations. The Vols lost a coach a month before signing day in early 2010. No one felt bad for Tennessee back then. (Lane Kiffin, the coach that left Tennessee in 2010, then took over a program at USC that had to deal with serious scholarship reductions, which doomed his time in Los Angeles. Absolutely no one felt bad for Kiffin.) Three years ago, Josh Heupel took over a Tennessee program that lost an immense amount of talent to the portal and dealt with scholarship reductions because of Jeremy Pruitt's recruiting violations. The response from the national media, at the time, wasn't sympathy, instead, they were collectively writing Tennessee football's obituary (they were wrong, by the way….Heupel made the best of it and went 7-6 that fall).
If Alabama goes 7-6, the sport will not die. The world will not stop. The national media will survive.
There's nothing special about the Alabama program. They just happened to have the best coach of all time for a 16-year run. And now they're having a hard time coming back to reality. And apparently the misguided national media is as well.
Welcome to the real world. National championships are rare, recruiting is hard, and rosters aren't always elite.
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