ESPN college football analyst says Alabama is closer to being irrelevant than to winning a National Championship

ESPN college football analyst EJ Manuel feels the Alabama Crimson Tide is not close to winning a National Championship.

Manuel was asked was Alabama closer to winning a championship or closer to being irrelevant on ESPN’s “First Take” on Friday.

“Right now, I’d say they’re closer to irrelevancy,” Manuel said. “And it sounds crazy because they went seven and one in the SEC last year. But if you think about the Alabama when Nick Saban was there. I got recruited to Alabama by Nick Saban. It was a different mode. And I understand that fan base is used to that, but y’all gotta get over that at this point. Like, this is a team that I think is still moving in the direction where yes they’re still making it to the CFP, yes you’re still supposed to be competing for championships, but there’s other teams that are just as good if not better than them in the SEC now.  You think about Texas A&M, you think about Texas, you think about Georgia who really has been the standard bearer in the SEC for the past couple of years winning two back-to-back in the title.”

”So ultimately, if you think about the trajectory of where this team is going, I unfortunately have to say irrelevant because you think about also they haven’t competed for a championship. Shoot, there hasn’t even been an SEC team in the championship game the past couple of seasons in the CFP. So you think about the end of the season, who are we talking about? We’re talking about Indiana, we’re talking about Ohio State , Oregon, Miami . It’s just really one of those things where if you think about five years ago it was always Alabama in the front of the conversation. So right now it’s headed toward irrelevancy overall.”

Alabama is coming off a season where it made the College Football Playoff and earned an appearance in the SEC Championship. The Crimson Tude defeated Oklahoma in the first round of the playoff before losing to Indiana in the Rose Bowl.