As for comparing us directly to Alabama?
It's ridiculous. Look, I get it. We have to beat them to win our own division. Yes. But if you compared lsu, auburn, Clemson etc to bama. They'd look terrible too. Particularly at linebacker in which bama has smoked everyone in recruiting at.
No one compares head to head with bama up and down the roster. We aren't going to be able to match them tie to toe either. Yet auburn was won 2 sec west's and a national title, lsu has won a national title, and Clemson has beat them twice for national titles all in the last 12 years or so. If you looked at a couple positions, it would look similar to us at linebacker. Where it just doesn't compare to the #1 recruiting program in college football history.
What we need to do is this. we need to close the gap as much as we can at as many positions as we can. stop worrying about exactly what they have in comparison to us, win more and more on the field and keep increasing recruiting as much as we can. To say it "this will definitely NOT win us any championships" is an unknown. We are actually trending quite strong to giving ourselves a respectable chance. That includes linebacker. On paper none of those teams should have stood a chance against bama either. You can only try to get closer than where you are giving yourself more chances