Getty Alabama football beat writer Joseph Goodman ripped the bowl system following the Tide's low-stakes Sugar Bowl win in his latest for AL.com
Though Alabama football ended the 2022 calendar year more successfully than they started it with a Sugar Bowl win over Kansas State on New Year’s Eve and a College Football Playoff championship loss to Georgia on January 10, AL.com’s Joseph Goodman believes that the Crimson Tide’s involvement in the non-CFP New Year’s Six bowl was ultimately harmful to the sport.
“It wasn’t even a bittersweet Sugar Bowl for Alabama on Saturday in New Orleans. It was the NutraSweet Bowl,” Goodman wrote. “It was a bottle of warm Boone’s Farm on New Year’s Eve when perfectly chilled Dom was right there for anyone to drink. Don’t let people fool you into thinking it was a good thing for college football that Young and Will Anderson Jr. decided to play in a game that no one cared about. That’s just gaslighting by ESPN. More than anything, Alabama 45, Kansas State 20 was yet another reminder of a college football postseason that is flawed, fraudulent and hurting the sport that it’s supposed to be promoting.”
Goodman believes the 2022 Tide could have been a key addition to a hypothetical expanded College Football Playoff. “Saban’s own team is the perfect example why the expanded College Football Playoff has the potential to be so revolutionary for the postseason and its sport,” he wrote. Ultimately, he feels the current setup is actively harming the sport’s integrity. “For the time being, the four-team setup is sabotaging college football with games that are afterthoughts involving players who are too good to be playing for nothing except pride this time of year.”
Joseph Goodman Hints Nick Saban Can Soon Retire
One of the more interesting nuggets from Joseph Goodman’s extended rant about the pitfalls of the current College Football Playoff system was the suggestion that Nick Saban could retire from Alabama football sooner than later.
While not throwing his name behind an official prediction that Saban’s days in Tuscaloosa are numbered, Goodman did suggest that the clock is at least ticking more rapidly as he progresses into his 70s. “…what if this also-ran Sugar Bowl were Saban’s final game? I’m not suggesting it is, but nothing can be taken for granted now that Saban is 71 and the oldest coach in the history of SEC football.”
Saban just completed his 16th season as head coach of the Crimson Tide, having only once finished with less than 10 wins — that being in his initial season in charge before winning six titles (and counting).
Joseph Goodman Says Alabama Football Would’ve Destroyed TCU
One of the bolder predictions Joseph Goodman made in his rant was that Alabama football would have not just beaten TCU — who knocked off Michigan 51-45 in the Fiesta Bowl to punch an unlikely ticket to the national championship following a 5-7 season in 2021 — but that the Crimson Tide would’ve destroyed the Horned Frogs.
His justification involved the transitive property. Since Alabama blew the doors off of Kansas State, Goodman wrote, it’s clear that TCU would’ve been handled just as easily. “The Alabama team that de-toothed the Kansas State Wildcats would have destroyed TCU in a neutral-site game of high stakes,” he said.
There’s a reason they play the games instead of simply determining results based on who would win on paper, but it’s not hard to imagine Alabama having potentially been a bigger threat to Georgia, who they defeated in the 2021 SEC Championship game, than the teams that made the field.