The issue isn't solely talent compared to Bama, etc. Look at our defense. It is truly an elite unite and did about as well as can be expected against Bama. And only giving up 17 points the final 49 minutes was impressive.
Offensively, we develop some of the best lines in college football year after year. We have some talent and speed at the skill positions.
The problem, once again, is QB. It is IMPERATIVE to have at least a top-10 QB, and Ian Book, as much as he tried, isn't even one of the 50 best QBs in college football. You can say all you want it's Kelly's job to get an elite QB, and I would agree, but he does recruit 4-star QBs with regularity. You can blame the coaching staff for not properly developing them, but look at the guys who transferred: Crist, Golson, Zaire and Wimbush. None of them panned out at their new schools.
Although the Kelly haters won't admit to this, we basically did get a new coach after the 2016 season, and the results since then would be more than palatable if we truly did get another guy. Two points:
1) Kelly needs to stop with "the guys needs to check off all the boxes before they can play" philosophy. Quit going with the "safe" choices (Schmidt over Morgan, Adams over Williams, Book over Jurkovec, leaving Lenzy, Keys and Johnson on the bench, etc.)
2) I am still high on Tommy Rees doing the job. There is ample evidence, if you open your eyes, that he knows what he's doing. My brother was at the game and said receivers were open time after time; Book never threw to them. Book's deficiencies totally handicapped this offense much more than many of you may think.
We were maybe one elite QB and one elite WR away from making this a game. If Kelly can change his mindset one more time - and we can get a big-time QB - a national championship is not out of the question.