As to why it seems unfair to me to categorize last year's team as a failure? I mean, I have to defend this proposition on a Bama board? That's wild to me, but okay.
As I mentioned, losing Bryce should have been a major setback for this team. Instead, we avenged the LSU and Tennessee losses and got ourselves back in the playoff. This and an SEC title were achieved with the coaches seemingly unsure who they wanted to play QB for half the season. I would argue we lacked our usual studs at RB and often played WR by committee. Though the defense seemed better somehow after the departure of Will Anderson, the offensive line was often very frustrating to watch.
Also, as we know, even for the best of teams, luck comes into play as far as winning the title. Sometimes, even the best teams don't win it.
I do understand that at the end of the day, winning and losing is the metric teams are judged by and winning a NC is the ultimate bar we hope to clear. It's just the language I sometimes hear in relation to the '23 team - like they're some kind of failed experiment or big decline from our norm - that irks me.
They accomplished plenty and compare favorably in accomplishments to the teams one and two years prior. It doesn't seem fair to me to ding the team for saying they were going to prove doubters wrong, even if they said it in a different way than we might have chosen. They circled the wagons to both fire themselves up and make a few bucks on the side. Good for them and in most cases, bad for our opponents.
