Alabama Football: Why the 2012 Tide Defense Are Nowhere Near the Best

Alabama seemed to be firing on all cylinders in their 21-0 shutout of LSU in the national championship last night.

LSU hadn't even crossed the 50-yard line until late in the fourth quarter. People were ready to claim that this Alabama defense was the best they had ever seen. 

Clearly, some people have bad memory.

Let's assume for a second that someone was just looking at the Tide's schedule for this year. Three shutouts with an NCAA best 8.1 points scored against. It looks pretty good and could possibly be the best defense of the year.

But then you delve deeper. Then you see that they allowed 21 points against a Georgia Southern team. The Tide supporters will point out that they put in seniors and backups in that game. They'll say that you can't judge their defense off that game.

But last time I checked, your defense needed to have depth. If your backups are allowing 21 points to an FCS team, then that should already be a signal that you need a better backup plan if your starters go down. 

While the Tide fans say that history is on their side, history is telling a different story. Look at the seven decades before this season. There are teams that match up very well with Alabama or just plain make Alabama look like a JV team. 

I'll take one of their rivals for an example—the 1938 Tennessee Volunteers.

Led by Robert Neyland, this team shut out eight opponents in that season, starting an NCAA-record 17 consecutive games that they shut out opponents. They averaged an absolutely ridiculous 1.45 points against them per game. No, I did not miss a number. It was actually 1.45.

What about the teams that didn't have a ridiculous 1.45 points against them a game, yet still had more interception and fumble recoveries than Alabama? Think of the all-time legendary defensive teams—71 Cornhuskers, '01 Hurricanes, '61 Crimson Tide, just to name a few.

Also, look at their strength of schedule. They only played four ranked teams, and of those four they played, only one was an offensive-minded team (Arkansas). All the great teams mentioned above either played more ranked teams or beat the best offensive teams. Alabama also lost to one of those ranked teams (LSU).

Look, I'm not saying that Alabama was a bad defense. They had a great defense that has a spot somewhere in the rankings. But they aren't anything special or legendary.

No. 1 is not the spot they belong in.