From an excellent article in the athletic, I am cutting and pasting an incredible bit of information that is not general knowledge, but rather the bench mark of the “eye test”
This was the first year that a super team lost to a developmental team. This may be the turn of a movement in college football now, where FSU is near the forefront with stable coaching and relationship buoy recruiting, which was lost during the COVID years due to lack of visits and travel.
The super teams always, always, always beat the developmental teams at the end of the year.
Well, Michigan just proved it’s not always.
The 2023 Alabama team boasts the second-most talented roster — on paper — in the modern recruiting era (dating back to 2002). The average scholarship player on this team was a top-100 recruit coming out of high school. That is an absurd statistic. Even if half of the signees didn’t pan out, Alabama would still have 40-ish players who lived up to their recruiting hype and would be among the best players at their position in the country. That’s basically an entire two-deep. It’s unfathomable how many good players are on this team.
This was the first year that a super team lost to a developmental team. This may be the turn of a movement in college football now, where FSU is near the forefront with stable coaching and relationship buoy recruiting, which was lost during the COVID years due to lack of visits and travel.
The super teams always, always, always beat the developmental teams at the end of the year.
Well, Michigan just proved it’s not always.
The 2023 Alabama team boasts the second-most talented roster — on paper — in the modern recruiting era (dating back to 2002). The average scholarship player on this team was a top-100 recruit coming out of high school. That is an absurd statistic. Even if half of the signees didn’t pan out, Alabama would still have 40-ish players who lived up to their recruiting hype and would be among the best players at their position in the country. That’s basically an entire two-deep. It’s unfathomable how many good players are on this team.
