Alabama Football: 3 reasons Tide will win 2019 National Championship

3. Nick Saban is still the hegemon among FBS coaches

At this point it almost seems unfair. In his first 11 seasons as head coach at Alabama, Nick Saban has won five national championships across both the BCS era and the current College Football Playoff setup. His teams have reached at least the semifinals in all five years of the four-team playoff, and they have gone to the national championship game in each of the last four years.

It is a run of dominance that no other coach has come close to replicating in the modern era of the sport. Saban is the hegemonic force of the coaching ranks, the man against which all of his peers are measured. He has set unrealistic benchmarks, yet every year his charges continue to meet and even exceed those expectations.

Saban isn’t a coach who has relied on flash or dazzle to get him to the pinnacle of college football. Instead, his teams have been methodical practitioners of defense-first football. Whatever you have to say about “The Process” you must also acknowledge that it has been incredibly effective at reviving a traditional powerhouse and engineering what might end up being its most golden era.

Unlike some of his counterparts in the FBS coaching ranks, there is no reason to think that Saban is slowing down any time soon or that he has any intentions of leaving Alabama. And when it comes to championship game situations, betting against Saban is a fool’s errand.

Saban is 6-1 in national championship games, including his win over Bob Stoops and the Oklahoma Sooners in the 2004 Sugar Bowl to earn LSU the BCS title. He is now 4-1 in College Football Playoff semifinal games, his only loss coming in the first year under the new system. And he is also 8-2 in SEC championship games, further showcasing how silly it is to bet against Saban on the biggest stages.

The Crimson Tide will bring a sixth national title back to Tuscaloosa during the Saban era as he passes fellow Alabama legend Bear Bryant for the most national title claims by a single head coach.