I think 2012 is the best team we've had under Nick Saban. Maybe the best team we've had since the late 1970s
I agree with you and RT_HTTR ... I'm thinking last years would have been hands down number one if they would have won the NC. I think folks will eventually put 2015 number one over 2011. The great thing about all of this the story is still being written so who knows what great things this team will accomplish this year that may surpass the previous years. No one figured that a team defensively would be better than 2011 and we already had two teams to rival them in a span of 5 years. Just impressive times
IMO, the past 2 years were Coach Saban's best defenses. They were the fastest, and built to combat the HUNH offenses. And yet, we still saw how teams like OM and Clemson, with great QB play, gave these two defenses so much trouble (aided, in no small part, by our own offensive ineptitude at times, but I digress). So I say that 2011 defense, stellar as it was, would have likely struggled greatly against the exact same Clemson teams we saw the past two seasons. JMO.
I don't like playing this game. 2011 was almost a different era of football so they may have played a completely different style of D or played some players more others less if they had to go against teams today. The Georgia Southern game was partially because there weren't very many teams like that and now almost every team runs some hurry up. It's way too hard to say how 2011 D would do in today's game. Frankly even if we could it would be useless because they weren't playing in today's game they were built for 2011 not 2016.
This gets into how you rate who is the best. But, that pass rush/DL would have been fun to watch going up against that OL. But Amari Cooper by the end of the year was a terror and Lacy was wrecking things. It would be a really good match up and fun game.
It was a different era of football. Just six years ago but yes, the game is vastly different.
Sorry, I didn't mean to come across as attacking at all if I did. I have just thought about it a lot so I ramble. What I meant was that I like trying to compare teams in context of their time. So, I wouldn't compare the 85 bears vs the whatever year Seahawks by basing how much success the 85 Bears would have vs teams in the modern NFL. That's why I think 2011 D is still 1 or 2 with 2016 being the other in the top 2. Allowing only 8.2 pts per game is insane.
This is overstating it. The offensive line that year was excellent (best of the Saban era), and AJ had come into his own as a field general by the end of that year. Cooper was a force over the top. Lacy was a beast. I think you are underestimating that unit.
