What was Nick Saban's Best Offense at Alabama?

No offenses are quite alike in college football, even for a coach like Nick Saban during his time at the University of Alabama.

Smart coaches gear the play-calling toward the personnel, and successful ones are always tweaking their schemes in an effort to improve. They know that opposing coaches spend a good part of the offseason trying to figure out ways to get the upper hand, so there's really no such thing as staying put, especially in a league like the Southeastern Conference.

The tricky thing about trying to compare Crimson Tide offenses under Saban is that they evolved dramatically over time, and embraced the changing landscape of the game. Although Alabama was always trying to be “balanced,” which is always a relative term, and would try to “take what the defense gives us,” it became more pace-oriented and less concerned with ball control.

Grind-it-out, four-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust approaches took a back seat to just score points. It wasn’t an overnight process either, although Saban did make a clear philosophical shift to counter rule changes (many implemented to try and curtail him and the Crimson Tide), and embraced spread elements and high-tempo attacks.

The pinnacle of this shift was on display during the 2000 season, with Steve Sarkisian as the offensive coordinator. The Crimson Tide's offense was so potent that it had the potential to score from anywhere on the field, at any time. It also helps explain how a wide receiver could win the Heisman Trophy before a quarterback at Alabama.

Nevertheless, no one can argue with the results, as the Crimson Tide remained in the national championship hunt every season until Saban stepped down after losing in overtime of a College Football Playoff semifinal at the end of the 2023 season.

The following is a look at each Crimson Tide offense since 2007, which is then evaluated and weighed against the other 16. .A couple of quick notes about the team capsules:

• Consensus All-Americans is the NCAA standard, which includes only the Associated Press, American Football Coaches Association, Water Camp Foundation, Football Writers Association of America and the Sporting News. A * indicates the player was a unanimous selection.

• The future draft picks are among starters only. So, for example, Josh Jacobs doesn’t count toward that figure since he never really started for the Crimson Tide. The listed starters are straight from the Alabama record book. For shared roles only one player was considered and the total of future draft picks could not exceed 11. For the first-round selections, the player with better draft status was used.

• Major Awards are prominent national honors only. For All-SEC, only the coaches’ first-team selections were used. Major stats and rankings are from the NCAA.