The Blue Board

Bama with 6 road games against the Blue Bloods?

Bama is the only blue blood that doesn't have a rival/team from the same conference that they play every year thats also a blue blood. Its not our fault that the sec doesn't have another blue blood.

Id be interested to see if there are additional teams on the beibk of joining this club. Who are they and what do they need to do to enter it ex go 37-2 over next 3 years etc

Bama doesn't have any of the others in conference or as a rival, so that lends to the smaller sampling of games.

Let's compare nattys during the last 50 years.

Alabama - 7

I'll allow the OP to fill in the rest. I believe Michigan & OSU combine for 3 since 1963.

7 of the 8 teams form 5 pairs of old rivalries (OU, ND, and UM have two each) . That helps those numbers a whole lot. It makes sense that Alabama is the outlier in the "games against each other". Look at College Football Data Warehouse. I know not everyone agrees on it, but use their all time rankings as a general measuring stick. They have the same 8 top teams. Alabama has a rivalry with none. However, we have played for decades the following teams in the all time rankings (and have winning records against all, most by a large margin) LSU 9th, Tennessee 10th, Georgia 11th, Florida 12th, and auburn 14th. Even if we disagree on their ranking methodology, that's 5 consensus top 15-20 programs all time. We own the record against all. I definitely think that should come into play, because in the case of all other teams on the blue blood list, none have more than two old rivalries with another top 15-20 team (most just have one).

Taking it a step further, one could even make the case that the reason none of those 5 crack the top 8 is because they had to play Alabama (and the other top 15 level teams in the conference) every year. No other conference has more than two teams in the top 15-20.

Is UM/ND not considered a rivalry? If not then ok, but UM isn't that far behind SC for me. Saw someone mention no conference affiliation as a reason Bama has not played blue bloods, BS.

I know USC has 7 MNC over the last 51 years. I would have to look up the others.

well no wonder, weak schedule imo. The other blue bloods were beating each other up while Bama slid by.

I understand what you are saying, but this was just about the teams that are over .700 all-time. Also, if you take away SC's games vs ND all-time, SC still has played around nearly twice as many games against the blue bloods as Alabama.

When I get a chance I'll take a look at some of the numbers for the teams at the next level that you are talking about.

USC has 7 if you go back to 1962 (51 yrs) but yes 6 since 1963.

I concede that point on SC, but my guess without looking at the numbers is that most of the other 8 haven't played such large numbers of games outside of their rivalries.

Concerning your point about .700+, I go back to the idea that having the "Big 6", where other conferences don't have as many historically elite teams lowers the potential winning percentage of those teams. Playing 2 or 3 historically elite programs a year and playing 4 or 5 a year certainly yields lower records for the latter over time.

Hadn't thought about that.