I enjoy our dominance and being the eternal favorite. I rarely even feel even a little anxiety before games any more. However, I must admit that the thought in the title has passed through my mind before. Then, I ran across the thread below on a MSU Bulldog board...
MSU
I have plenty of Bulldog friends. That happens when you spend 17 years in Lowndes County (which you have to drive through to get to Starkvegas from T-town and vice versa.
But 20 years ago, they were calling us overrated back when they beat us 4 out of 5. They were among the loudest saying "y'all just can't deal with the fact Bryant cheated and he's gone and you're never gonna be a big deal again."
Now having said that, Clay Travis has blogged in recent days about what we might call the "trickle up theory" evaluating how basically the success that Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson, and Oklahoma (and UGA as well) have had since the beginning of the CFP has perpetuated success. Those teams get the largest share of 5 stars and then 4 stars, etc. Recruiting rankings are MUCH MORE PRECISE than they've ever been. I'm old enough to recall when pretty much every year Notre Dame would haul in the best recruiting class......and then they'd have a couple of 8-3 seasons and lose to teams like Ole Miss and Missouri. However - while this upward mobility is GREAT if you're a fan of the five programs named, it will become perpetually boring to fans of every other team in the country. My fear is that we are on our way to becoming English soccer, more for the ill than for the good. When I lived in the UK in the 1970s, parity had teams very evenly matched so that the poorer teams had a just below even chance of competing with the richer ones. The creation of the Premiere League did two things: 1) turned England into a Final Four team almost every World Cup with some really great players - while drawing big money; 2) turned the English soccer season into a four-team roulette wheel where Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Liverpool win 95% of all the competitions. It has also devalued cup competitions similar to how our once elite New Year's Day bowl games have been diluted to near meaningless.
One thing that recent years have done, however, is expose the ruse of the polls. The reality is that prior to 2014, only MAYBE AT MOST 20 teams in this entire country even had a chance at winning the championship. However, teams could celebrate bowl wins when there were 7-10 games, and they meant something for prestige to the school.
PREVIOUS CONTENDERS
Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Ole Miss
Ohio St, Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Penn St
USC, UCLA
Oklahoma, Nebraska
Texas, Texas A/M, Arkansas, SMU
Ole Miss, of course, regressed largely due to their response to integration plus the three-way split of talent as USM got better in a small state. You could have the occasional sudden surprise - 1976 Pitt, 1984 BYU, 1991 Washington - that doesn't come from that small group, but that list right there sans Ole Miss is your list of contenders (and Florida was only theoretically a potential "could be" prior to the 1980s). Later, FSU and Miami would join the list but that right there is almost every single title winner from the advent of the AP poll in 1936 through 1986.
Let me put it this way: I turn off more games in the first half now than I ever did in previous years. On the flip side, every single SEC school was spitting on us and kicking us when we were down - so to hell with them.
But I do think it's bad long-term for the sport. My Oregon bud and I talk about this - and how grateful we are that we lived in the 70s, 80s, and 90s for CFB when the hard hits (lethal) and running game and strength meant so much. The sport is declining into flag football, and I believe 30 years from now (if not sooner) we won't even recognize the sport......and it may no longer command the $ on television that it has the last 30 years.