Maybe a Nobel Peace Prize ... but in STEM fields I still think they're a decent barometer.
But in any case, you can just substitute your own metrics for academic reputation and see how these top sports schools stack up against other colleges and universities across the U.S.
I already did. In my comment # 44 that you replied to I stated: "By the way, getting a computer science degree from Bama requires building you own pre compiler." Let me 'splain it to you.
1) My statement quoted above is immediately after the one you quoted from my post (the one where I said that Nobel Peace prizes no longer indicate smarts).
2) Bama is one of the "top sports schools".
3) As far as using my "own metrics for academic reputation" I did that in the sentence quoted above. I, a software engineer, obviously am interested in the training of programmers. If you don't understand what it takes to make software, then I can understand you not appreciating what I meant by Bama requiring their computer science students to make a pre compiler in a required course for a BS in CS. Software compilers are some of the most complicated software made. Any programmer who can make one (which means any programmer getting a CS degree from top sports place Bama), can make any software. (Exceptions are software applications in special fields such as rocket engineering that requires aerodynamic engineering knowledge, or MRI's that require radiation knowledge and anatomy knowledge, etc.)
So if you have a software job opening and want to fill it with a junior programmer with about the best training you can have (but no experience), it's hard to beat someone with a CS degree from Bama. Don't ask me about other fields. I know just my field.