Alabama Football: 10 Best Players in Crimson Tide's History

With a championship legacy that stretches all the way back to the early days of college football, the Alabama Crimson Tide have fielded superstar players for more than a century.

Few programs can compare their All-American totals to the one enjoyed by Alabama, which has also had plenty of players who took home individual awards for excellence at their respective positions. 

As much as overall team success has been the ultimate goal for the Tide's program, it can boast some of the best players in the sport's history.

That's what makes distilling all the decades of Alabama history into one top-10 list of all-time best players so difficult. Different eras yield different kinds of stats. Narrowing down a group of more than 100 All-Americans means plenty of great players aren't going to make the cut.

School records, All-American selections, championships and individual awards are what determined the following top-10 list. It's far from an exact science, so there is plenty of room for debate and your own personal rankings in the comments below.

Honorable Mention

Vincent Laforet/Getty Images

RB Shaun Alexander

Since Alabama boasts 115 All-Americans—59 of them consensus and 26 of them unanimous—in its history, dozens of outstanding players are going to be left off of a top-10 list and even this list of 15 honorable mentions.

Here are a handful of stars who deserve extra recognition among the Tide's greats:

RB Shaun Alexander

RET Javier Arenas

S Mark Barron

DE Leroy Cook

DT Terrence Cody

RB Bobby Humphrey

WR Don Hutson

WR Julio Jones

LB Rolando McClain

LB C.J. Mosley

QB Joe Namath

RB Trent Richardson

OL Chris Samuels

OL Dwight Stephenson

K Van Tiffin

10. CB Antonio Langham

Along with national championships, head coach Nick Saban has brought outstanding secondary play back to Alabama during his tenure in Tuscaloosa. One of the best examples of the Tide's history at the position is Antonio Langham, who starred for three seasons at Alabama.

Langham holds the record for most career interceptions at Alabama with 19, and the two-time All-American cornerback is also the only player to return three picks for touchdowns. His most famous play came in the 1992 SEC Championship Game—the first in conference history—when he took a Shane Matthews interception back for the game-winning touchdown with 3:16 remaining in the fourth quarter.

Although his 1993 Thorpe Award-winning season was later the subject of NCAA sanctions and forfeits, there is no denying that the ball-hawking Langham had one of the best overall careers in program history.

9. TE Ozzie Newsome

Newsome's career in football is one of the greatest from a former Alabama player. He had a Hall of Fame career as a player for the Cleveland Browns and is a two-time Super Bowl champion as the general manager of the Baltimore Ravens.

At Alabama, Newsome stood out on a run-first team by becoming a four-year starter and a consensus All-American in 1977 at tight end. Bear Bryant called Newsome the greatest tight end in school history, and it's impossible to argue with the legendary coach there.

Newsome is fourth all-time at Alabama in career receiving yards and averaged an unbelievable 20.3 yards per catch during his four years with the team. From the beginning to the end of his playing days, Newsome was the standard for tight ends in Tuscaloosa and the rest of the college football world.

8. LB Cornelius Bennett

Bennett doesn't hold all-time records at Alabama like many on this list, but what he did bring to the Alabama program was consistent greatness from the linebacker spot.

The linebacker nicknamed "Biscuit" was a three-time All-American selection, taking that honor in 1984, 1985 and 1986. In his senior season, Bennett won the Lombardi and the SEC Player of the Year awards while finishing seventh in Heisman Trophy voting. He ranks fourth all-time in Alabama history for tackles for loss and seventh for standard tackles.

Bennett is also the face of one of the most famous plays in Alabama history—"The Sack." In Alabama's game against Notre Dame in 1986, Fighting Irish quarterback Steve Beuerlein rolled out on a play-action pass and never saw a thunderous hit from Bennett coming his way. Just like he did several other times in his career, Bennett set the tone for an eventual Alabama victory with one big play.

7. WR Amari Cooper

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The most recent player to make the top 10, Cooper became the greatest statistical wide receiver in Alabama history after a mind-blowing 2014 season.

Two years after a breakout freshman campaign in which he caught 59 passes for 1,000 yards and 11 touchdowns, Cooper obliterated the receiving charts at Alabama with a season that featured an SEC-record 124 catches for 1,727 yards and 16 touchdowns—all Alabama records by tremendous lengths. He broke Julio Jones' record for yards in a game twice last season by posting 224 against rivals Tennessee and Auburn.

Cooper was unstoppable for most of 2014, finishing as a unanimous All-American, the Biletnikoff Award winner and the No. 3 player in the Heisman Trophy vote—the best spot for a receiver since Larry Fitzgerald finished second in 2003. When it comes to catching the football at Alabama, no one can match Coop's career.

6. OC/LB Lee Roy Jordan

As a star center and linebacker for Bear Bryant in the early 1960s, Jordan dominated on both sides of the ball for several championship-winning teams. Jordan, who was named a unanimous All-American in 1962, received some of the highest praise from Bryant during his playing career.

"He was one of the finest football players the world has ever seen," Bryant said, according to the National Football Foundation. "If runners stayed between the sidelines, he tackled them. He never had a bad day, he was 100 percent every day in practice and in the games."

Jordan recorded 31 tackles in his final game as a member of the Crimson Tide. He started from the first snap of his NFL career with the Dallas Cowboys at linebacker and later became a five-time Pro Bowler. Jordan is one of the most decorated players to ever suit up for the Crimson Tide and arguably the best two-way star in school history.

5. RB Mark Ingram

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Even with all the legendary players in Alabama history, only one has won college football's most coveted individual award—the Heisman Trophy. Ingram became the first one to bring the famous stiff-arming trophy to Tuscaloosa after one of the best rushing seasons in school history.

He helped the Crimson Tide win their first national title in 17 years by 1,658 rushing yards—then an Alabama record—and 17 touchdowns in 2009. He had some of his biggest games when it mattered most that season, scoring multiple touchdowns in four of the final five contests in Alabama's championship drive.

The star running back broke Alabama's all-time record for rushing touchdowns in a career (42) in just three seasons and currently ranks third in rushing yards. While his other two seasons in Tuscaloosa didn't feature nearly as many yards as his 2009 effort, Ingram was consistently one of the best touchdown machines to ever put on an Alabama uniform.

4. QB AJ McCarron

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Some might think it's too early to put McCarron on a list of historic names like this one, but the record books at Alabama tell a completely different story. A member of three national championship teams and the starting quarterback for two of them, McCarron shattered many school records as the top offensive player of the Nick Saban era.

McCarron ranks No. 1 in Alabama history for all of the following categories: passing yards, touchdowns, completions, completion percentage, longest pass, lowest interception percentage and most consecutive passes without an interception. In many of those stats, McCarron is at the top of the list by a huge margin.

With a 36-4 record, he ranks second all-time in career winning percentage for the Crimson Tide. While spread quarterbacks might have overshadowed him statistically, the precise McCarron racked up victories and championships during his record-breaking time as the Crimson Tide's signal-caller.

3. LB Woodrow Lowe

Of all the great players in Alabama history, only two of them were three-time All-Americans. Bennett was one of them, and Lowe was the other.

Lowe played on four different SEC championship teams and the 1973 squad that won the national championship. He was a ferocious tackling machine during his award-winning days in Tuscaloosa, as his 134 tackles on that 1973 title team was the best single season for tackles in school history. Lowe ranks fourth all-time in career tackles with 315.

The legendary Alabama linebacker played 11 seasons in the NFL with the San Diego Chargers and only missed one game in his entire pro career, per AL.com's Mark Inabinett. Simply put, Lowe's impressive resume of titles, team selections and tackles is unmatched in the sport's rich history.

2. OL John Hannah

In a position that doesn't get enough of the spotlight, Hannah wasn't only the best offensive lineman in Alabama history—Sports Illustrated named him the best offensive lineman in football history.

Hannah played both tackle and guard for the Crimson Tide under Bear Bryant and was an All-American in 1971 and 1972, the first of five straight SEC championship seasons. His impact on Alabama athletics didn't stop on the football field, as he was a star on the wrestling and track and field teams.

While this nine-time Pro Bowler's career became legendary to the rest of the country when he starred for the New England Patriots in the NFL, Hannah had already earned the designation as one of the best players ever at his legendary alma mater. Few can claim to be the best at what they did on the football field. Hannah can.

1. LB Derrick Thomas

David Breslauer/Associated Press

Of all the elite players in Alabama history, Thomas was the most dominant at his craft—rushing the quarterback and causing havoc in opponents' backfields. Even though the NCAA didn't start counting sacks as an official stat until 2000, Thomas holds the FBS' unofficial all-time record for quarterback takedowns in a single season (an eye-popping 27 in 12 games in 1988) and an entire career (52).

The Miami native won the Butkus Award, was named a unanimous All-American and finished 10th in Heisman voting for his unbelievable 1988 season. The closest player to him on Alabama's all-time list for career sacks recorded less than half of his otherworldly total.

From his legendary time in Tuscaloosa all the way through his Hall of Fame pro career, which was tragically cut short in 2000, the late Derrick Thomas was simply one of the best players the game of football has ever seen.

All school records are from the Alabama athletic department's online record book.

Justin Ferguson is an on-call college football writer at Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @JFergusonBR.