Will Alabama football ever be taken down?

In the south, college football is considered to be practically a religion. Each area has its own favorite team, with their own special traditions and rivalries with other colleges. For anyone who has ever played sports, bragging rights are arguably one of the best prizes for winning and there is one college in particular where the fans seem to always have a monopoly on bragging rights: The University of Alabama.

Over the years, Alabama has shown great success on the field. In addition, they have been in six of the last 10 college national finals games. Many fans, including WJ students, question how they are so good, even calling it unfair how good they are. It seems that Alabama has established a system of recruiting and coaching that seems nearly unstoppable.

There is no draft for college football, so coaches and scouts go across the country to different high schools to find the best players. The coaches and/or scouts will talk to the players and offer young athletes scholarships to their school. The draft system makes it fair for every NFL team to select high-ranking players for their team and the worse NFL teams usually have higher picks in the draft. Without a draft, it does not matter how good a team is; they can and will consistently get the better players, with Alabama potentially being the primary beneficiary of this system. Also, many of the top draft picks from the NFL originate from Alabama, further indicating that the best players go there. Many think that Alabama is maybe too good, and makes college football less fun to watch.

Sophomore Aidan Smith had mixed feeling on Alabama’s impact on college sports.

“I think that Alabama is a good thing and a bad thing for college football at the same time. On one hand they make games very exciting because of how good they are, but on the other hand, it can get pretty annoying to watch Alabama just obliterate worse teams,” Smith said.

Another major key for Alabama’s college recruiting is their ‘hype’. It is commonly known that the better players go to Alabama,so many young athletes aspire to go there. By playing on a great team, the athlete has a lot of chances to catch NFL coaches’ eyes,improve their chances of being drafted and helping their dreams come true.. Also, because of how good Alabama continues to be at football, their games are always televised, guaranteeing that there will be highlights from all of their games on major sports channels like ESPN.

Coaching is arguably the most important part of football, one that Alabama has perceivably taken exceptional advantage of alongside their strong roster of players year after year. No team can succeed if they are not organized, no matter how good the players are. Alabama head coach Nick Saban has run a tight squad results-oriented program since his hiring at the school.. He has lead his team to multiple comeback victories and has created real stars from kids coming out of high school. Preparing college football players for the NFL is very important and Saban does just that. Because of all of the great players that have come from Alabama, NFL coaches have recognized Alabama as a notable team and NFL scouts from all teams are constantly watching the players. This makes Alabama’s reputation even better, and more intriguing for players to go here.

It would be engaging to see another team do what Alabama currently does, and when they do, they could as well share in being one of the greatest in college sports. Many players have come out of the Alabama football program like running back Derrick Henry for the Tennessee Titans or Julio Jones on the Atlanta Falcons, and time will only tell whether the school maintains this reputation and professional player output.