Each year, CBS Sports crowns 1 college sports program as the best in the world for the past season. Teams are ranked based on their performance in Football, Men’s Basketball, Women’s Basketball, as well as 2 “Wildcard” sports individual to each school’s strengths. Football and Men’s Basketball carry the most weight in determining final placement.
When all the numbers were added up, the Alabama Crimson Tide were clearly the top seeded program. Led by their historically dominant Football program under Head Coach Nick Saban.
The Crimson Tide finished with a massive 100 point difference between them and second place Oklahoma. For reference, every other seed was separated by around 1-15 points. Meaning the difference between Alabama and the next best team was around 10 times more than the difference between any two other programs. Further illustrating the incredible year Alabama had across all of College Sports. Iowa, Oklahoma State, Texas, USC, Florida, BYU, Clemson, and Ohio State round out the top 10.
Alabama’s Football program finished with a rating of 250, the next closest team to that was Ohio State at 225. Crimson Tide Men’s Basketball finished with a rating of 128. Which ranked 8th behind the likes of USC, UCLA, Baylor, Michigan, and a few others.
Alabama’s teams finished high across the board in the 2020-2021 campaign. Their Football program went 13-0 en route to winning another National Championship. Men’s Basketball reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament after a 26-7 season. Women’s hoops went 17-10 and reached the second round of the NCAA tournament. Softball reached the Semifinals of the Women’s College World Series after a 50+ win season.
Past winners of the award, which has been given out since 2013, with the exception of last year due to the pandemic, include Louisville, Stanford, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Florida State, Ohio State, and Michigan. With the Buckeyes being the only 2 time winners in the award’s nearly decade long history. Alabama became the first program to ever be crowned best in College Sports in the same year they won the National Championship in Football. They are also the first SEC team to earn the award.
According to an article by BestCollegeReviews.com, the Crimson Tide are the 9th most successful college sports school of all time. With Florida, UCLA, Stanford, Uconn, and North Carolina Chapel-Hill making up the top 5. And while most of those teams are riding the coattails of the distant past, the Crimson Tide are riding high on the dominance of their Football program in the past 20 years.
With the conference expanding and all the turmoil surrounding Oklahoma and Texas and their expected move to the SEC, 1 thing remains the same, Alabama is still the king of college sports.
