Why Alabama Is Built Best for the College Football Playoff

There is nothing novel or endearing about saying Alabama is the best-built team for the College Football Playoff, but that doesn't make it any less correct.

It has the best players, after all. It does. That's what four straight No. 1 recruiting classes will do for you.

"Arguably, they’ve got the greatest collection of football players ever assembled for a college team if the recruiting services are correct," South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier said at SEC media days this summer. "And they're pretty much correct."

It has the most experienced coaching staff, too. Or at least it does among the contenders.

TCU head coach Gary Patterson and defensive coordinator Dick Bumpas have been together longer than Nick Saban and Kirby Smart, and they have enjoyed great success in their own right. But they haven't done it on a CFP-sized stage the way Saban and Smart have.

They haven't won three national titles in a four-year stretch.

Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press

More than that, though, Alabama is the most complete team in the country. There is nothing that it struggles to do.

It doesn't throw as well it did in 2013, but it can still throw. It doesn't run as well as it did in 2012, but it can still run. It doesn't defend as well as it did in 201—actually, maybe it does.

Just go ask Mississippi State.

According to the F/+ ratings at Football Outsiders, Alabama has the No. 4 offense and the No. 2 defense in the country. No other team has two top-five units. Heck, no other team has two in the top 10. 

Oregon's pass defense (and the health of its offensive line) is still an issue. Florida State cannot stop the run. TCU has looked careless away from Fort Worth. Ditto Baylor away from Waco.

Rick Bowmer/Associated Press

We can't know for sure what kind of team is best-equipped to handle the playoff, because it's never happened before. But it stands to reason that the team with the fewest weak areas would rank toward the top.

The addition of a semifinal means one more chance for a team to exploit you, one more opponent that might be your kryptonite. The teams that can beat you in multiple ways have the best chance of surviving two playoff games.

Alabama can beat you in any way it must.

In the words of Matt Brown of Sports on Earth:

"

Like any other team, Alabama has its flaws, and any team of college players is going to inject a degree of uncertainty into the proceedings. Still, like no other team, every aspect of a game in Tuscaloosa is a relentless physical test for opponents. Like the rest of the Saban era, Alabama is beatable—only once has it finished undefeated, after all—but it takes a lot for multiple teams to get the job done in the regular season. ...

There are ways to beat Alabama. There just aren't as many ways as the rest of college football, meaning Alabama is back to being the team anyone should least want to face in November and beyond.

"

The Crimson Tide are peaking at the end of the season for the umpteenth time under Saban, and they're doing it with a redshirt senior quarterback in Blake Sims. They're doing it with a Heisman candidate skill player in Amari Cooper. They're doing it with a one-time national champion offensive coordinator in Lane Kiffin.

Florida State fans would argue (and would not be entirely wrong to argue) that the 'Noles are best-equipped to handle the playoff because they are the only power-conference team with an undefeated record. Plus, you know, they won the national championship with the same head coach and quarterback last year.

But the way Florida State has dug itself into holes—even if it's just to pull a Houdini at the last possible second—does not make it a comfortable horse to back.

Louisville and Miami are good teams, but they aren't very good teams. Whichever team the Seminoles play in the playoff will by definition be very good. And very good teams are by definition able to hold a lead.

That's ostensibly how they'll have made the CFP in the first place.

But Jameis Winston is the best clutch quarterback in football. Yes. Yes he is. There's a reason he has never lost a game.

Sims, however, is starting to close the gap.

He led a nine-play, 50-second, 55-yard field-goal drive to force overtime against LSU in Tiger Stadium. He led a 15-play, six-plus-minute, 76-yard touchdown drive to ice the game against Mississippi State. The latter prompted Saban to tell reporters, "That was probably one of the greatest drives in Alabama history."

Saban. Who literally never uses hyperbole.

He knows a special something when he sees it.

That is slowly what this team has become.

Follow Brian Leigh on Twitter: @BLeighDAT