The Stat Where Alabama Athletics Stands Alone in All of Division I for 2025-26
Alabama baseball collected the final infinity stone on Monday to create something that separates the Crimson Tide's athletic program from the rest of college sports.
Alabama is the only Division I program during the 2025-26 academic calendar to make the College Football Playoff, Women's NCAA Tournament, Men's NCAA Tournament, Women's College World Series and now the Men's College World Series, per SEC Network.
Ahead of the Men's College World Series, each of the aforementioned programs won at least one national postseason tournament game as well. Head coach Kalen DeBoer and the football team beat Oklahoma on the road in the first round of the CFP. The women's basketball team reached the Round of 32, Nate Oats and the men's basketball team appeared in the Tide's fourth straight Sweet 16 and the softball team advanced to the semifinal.
But the success of Alabama athletics didn't stop there. The gymnastics team was one of the final 16 programs remaining in the NCAA Tournament, track and field's Doris Lemngole won not one, but two national titles, the men's wheelchair basketball team was the runner-up at the National Championship while the women's team won it. Just last week, men's golfer William Jennings finished second in the NCAA Championships.
Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne is behind a lot of the success, as he hired many of the coaches of the teams listed above. He explained on April 2 that there were "inaccurate narratives" surrounding UA's usage of NIL - the hottest topic in college sports.
"I had somebody call me and say, 'I'm told that you guys are slashing your budget, that you're not doing any NIL rev share,'" Byrne said. "That's what some agents and opposing coaches are out there saying. It's a lie, completely inaccurate.
"One of the things we have tried very diligently as a department is to make sure we don't promise something we can't deliver. And so I know of schools who are reducing what they had promised from a rev share NIL standpoint in some sports.
"We haven't done that, and it's important that we continue to do everything we can to stay competitive and also not have it be where something doesn't get delivered. In today's very unregulated, challenging world, that's hard.
"The reports out there from what schools have in rev share, I've seen stuff out about us like it's not even close to being accurate. It's hard to say, 'Well, you're wrong,' because that opens up a whole other can of worms."
In the end, Byrne has the last laugh and Alabama athletics in 2025-26 backs it up.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/alabama as The Stat Where Alabama Athletics Stands Alone in All of Division I for 2025-26.
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This story was originally published June 8, 2026 at 3:31 PM.