They currently claim 17 so they actually have 12. Yes, one more than we have. To keep up, just subtract 5 from Alabama's claimed total.

Of course, if I ever have this discussion with some SEC puke, and they ask how many national championships Notre Dame has, my first question is always "how many do you think Alabama has?". They always say 17 so, of course, my answer is that Notre Dame has 21. That is insane of course but if you go through and find every place that Notre Dame was ever named national champs, no matter how irrelevant or silly, then you can make that argument. It's "Alabama math".

Of course, that doesn't take away from the fact that they are currently one of the true dynasties in the history of college football. If they had won last night, they would have been national champs three out of four years, just like Leahy in the '40s; a record I never thought would be approached. I believe that every player recruited to Alabama by Nick Sabin has won at least one national championship. Think about that. How can anyone else compete for recruits?

What they did in the 1950s isn’t relevant.

That said, ESPN will treat Bama differently because they have earned the right to be treated differently. I don’t have the stats in front of me, but Saban has not been blown out like last night in years. ND can’t say the same thing.