Over the past decade I believe each of those teams has went pretty hard. Only one to discredit is Oklahoma, and add some credit to Auburn.
But Alabama was good before the Saban era. Depending on how far you go back.. we had a national championship in the 90's which i think was all we needed.. And if you knew the story, we would have had Gene Stallings for many more years (the coach who won in 92) but his son had some problems and was dying, so he left coaching. We would have ruled the SEC in the 90's.
But if we aren't going back that far, we didn't have a 2003 LSU team by any means before Nick Saban but we did have a really good team in 2005. Our center got hurt the game before we played LSU, and our whole line fell apart. Guys were lined up in different places, playing next to guys they're not used to, and also a lack of depth.
Losing a lineman is much more crucial than losing a running back or a receiver... which we also lost with Tyrone Prothro, who caught that pass around dudes back. He broke his leg in our blowout over Florida.
Look man, I remember Gene Stallings...not vidly of course, but I remember Prothro, B. Croyle, Shaun Alexander years, alot of other players.....traditionally i've liked Alabama.....but to act like y'all have been dominating the whole of college football like you have the past 4-5 years is asinine. It's just not true.