College football didn’t have a standout team for most of the 2017 season. One didn’t really emerge until the second half of the Playoff National Championship, when the sport reverted to its default state: Alabama winning the title.

Before that, no one dominated. Alabama had very few wins over good teams, lost a game by 12, and nearly lost another. Clemson had a loss to Syracuse. Ohio State and USC had two pretty quick losses each, with one apiece coming ugly. Wisconsin and UCF faced schedule-strength skepticism. Georgia had a blowout loss. Oklahoma had an Oklahoma defense and a loss to Iowa State. Miami was always unproven or injured.

In another year, Alabama would’ve been the year-long dominant team. The Tide weren’t this time, and they won the national championship anyway — with what the numbers say is their worst team since 2008, Nick Saban’s second year in charge.

Alabama’s performance under Nick Saban, year over year Season S&P+ Rank S&P+ Margin Record Result Season S&P+ Rank S&P+ Margin Record Result 2008 7 19.8 12-2 Lost Sugar 2009 2 24 14-0 Won NC 2010 4 22.9 10-3 Boring bowl 2011 2 27.5 12-1 Won NC 2012 1 28.5 13-1 Won NC 2013 2 22.2 11-2 Lost Sugar 2014 2 25.2 12-2 Lost semifinal 2015 1 27.8 14-1 Won NC 2016 1 34.0 14-1 Lost NC 2017 2 20.0 13-1 Won NC

Based on S&P+’s play-by-play data and schedule-strength formula, Bama’s been either the best or second-best team in the country in all of those years except 2010, a three-loss campaign that ended with Greg McElroy quarterbacking a Capital One Bowl win over Michigan State.

After that, 2017’s team performed the worst. The Tide weren’t the same wrecking ball they were in 2016, when they went 14-1 with a last-second National Championship loss to Clemson.

Bama’s true quality was merely elite in 2017, as opposed to the usual super elite. The Tide got beaten badly by Auburn, had a close call against Mississippi State, and got outgained by LSU. And Bama’s lack of an incredible schedule (No. 22 in schedule strength, per Sports-Reference, which had the Tide No. 1 there in the previous two full years) manifests in the advanced stats.

We’re splitting hairs, because Alabama’s still better than everyone else. But it made some sense that this year’s team would be down.

Alabama assistants leave for other jobs all the time, but the program had more turnover than usual this year on its offensive staff. Three-year coordinator Lane Kiffin left for FAU during the previous season’s Playoff. Tackles and tight ends coach Mario Cristobal left for Oregon. Receivers coach Billy Napier left for Arizona State. Kiffin’s replacement, Steve Sarkisian, left for the Falcons shortly after his lone game in charge, and new coordinator Brian Daboll hadn’t coached in college this millennium.

The Tide lost bunches of their best players from 2016, as always. They entered the year 73rd in returning production. That wasn’t much of an anomaly; the Tide were 99th in returning production the year before. It’s still a lot to replace 10 draft picks, up from seven or eight in each of the previous three classes. Seven of those 10 were on defense, meaning neither side of the ball had much continuity.

The program’s injury list was huge by the end of the season. Alabama had most of its linebacking corps in and out of the lineup all year and was missing a couple of key starters by the national title game, including Mike linebacker Shaun Dion Hamilton for the second year in a row. The Tide had a lot to overcome.

Alabama, of course, now looks deadlier than ever.

The 2017 signing class is the second-highest rated since they started tracking these things. That group of players hasn’t come of age yet, but it was still true freshmen who led the Tide’s comeback on Georgia in the title game.

Bama has problems. They’re just different than the problems that face everybody else. Their first-year offensive coordinator left for the same job with the Bills, so they’ll have to find some other highly renowned assistant to be the third Bama offensive coordinator in a row to lead a Playoff run in his first year on the job (not counting Sarkisian).

They’ll have to pick a QB for next year between a rising junior who’s 26-2 as a starter and a five-star sophomore whose only meaningful experience is replacing the other guy before leading a 13-point comeback in the biggest game of the year and throwing the most memorable touchdown pass in recent college football history. Brutal!

Oh, and Bama’s top running back decided to skip the draft and play another year in Tuscaloosa. How do you find carries for the No. 1 offensive recruit in the country from 2017 who just led your team in rushing in a title game as a true freshman? Bama problems.

Everyone else might’ve just missed their shot.

Alabama was weaker this year than usual, just one team in a mass of good ones at the top of the polls. In a world where the Ohio State-Iowa score flipped or USC didn’t lose a weird Friday night game at Washington State, the Tide would’ve been out of the Playoff instead of its No. 4 seed.

That didn’t happen, and Bama looks as strong as ever.