5 reasons to still be optimistic about Alabama’s national title chances
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For those Alabama fans who watched last Saturday’s mistake-filled end to a glorious few months of winning, shook their collective heads and walked away thinking those national title dreams were dashed, well, how about a history lesson?
A very recent history lesson. Like, how about last year? That’s when Ohio State suffered an unfathomable loss to a 6-5 Michigan team, on its home field, on the last day of November. It was Ohio State’s 2nd setback of the season, suddenly it wasn’t going to the Big Ten title game and, maybe most alarming, fans all over the Buckeye State went ballistic on head coach Ryan Day.
It felt like the world was ending in college football-crazed Columbus, only it wasn’t. Everybody knows the rest of this history lesson, with the Buckeyes slipping into the College Football Playoff as the No. 8 seed and punishing everyone in their path. Ohio State won it all with a 10-2 regular season record and without playing in its conference championship game, and it suffered that 2nd loss 15 calendar days after this Alabama team just did.
If the Crimson Tide do what they’re supposed to do these last 2 weeks against overmatched Eastern Illinois and struggling Auburn, they will also finish 10-2 and they also might not even play in their conference title game. And, like last year’s Buckeyes, they still could get a shot as a powerful lower seed lurking in the weeds that’s primed to blow through the bracket and win it all anyway.
These days, with the expanded 12-team Playoff format, you can lose in November and still live to tell about it. Ohio State did, and so can Alabama, which lost its November game against a much better team than that Michigan squad. With that, here are 5 reasons to still be optimistic about the Tide’s national title chances:
1. All those mistakes and you still only lost by 2?
An Alabama team that had taken care of the ball so well all season led by a quarterback who had only thrown 1 interception suddenly came unglued against Oklahoma. The Tide committed 3 turnovers in a mid-November slop fest and all of them proved costly, because the Sooners needed every last 1 of them just to sneak out of T-Town with the upset.
Ty Simpson’s interception was returned 87 yards for a touchdown late in the 1st quarter. Ryan Williams fumbled a punt return in the 2nd quarter, and instead of having a shot to take its first lead of the game, Bama was in a 17-7 hole after OU turned it into a TD 2 plays later. Then late in the 3rd quarter, after the Tide finally took that first lead, Simpson coughed up the ball on a sack, the Sooners recovered and they were suddenly set up nicely at the Bama 28-yard line.
Oklahoma only got a field goal out of it, but those were the deciding 3 points of the game, because that elite OU defense was a little too good. But guess what? Alabama gift-wrapped 17 of the Sooners’ 23 points, and we hadn’t even mentioned the blocked field goal attempt by Conor Talty on the final play of the first half that would’ve tied it at 17 and given the Tide a full reset.
That field goal gone awry could’ve changed the outcome a few hours later, and even after all of those Crimson Tide calamities, Bama only lost by 2 points. The point here is that Alabama lost, but Oklahoma didn’t beat the Tide on this day as much as the Tide beat themselves. The fact that Bama almost won despite all that should give everyone some perspective and the Tide some assurance going forward, even if they were kicking themselves like crazy for the next few days.
2. A QB who hates to lose might just opt not to again
Ty Simpson isn’t going to win the Heisman Trophy, after all. That’s become obvious over the past several weeks as Alabama’s offensive production has dipped and as a guy like Fernando Mendoza has taken off for undefeated Indiana. But while the Heisman ship has sailed, it doesn’t mean Simpson’s first season as a starter hasn’t been a rousing success. It definitely has.
And those crushing mistakes that Simpson made last Saturday against Oklahoma will burn him so badly because he’s a perfectionist. Remember Simpson holding that stat sheet in street clothes and shaking his head after the win at Mizzou last month. Instead of boasting about a huge road victory, he was bemoaning himself for what he didn’t do. That screams winner, and winners don’t like to lose like Simpson just did.
He’ll be hell bent on making up for that forgettable performance in these last few games against Eastern Illinois and Auburn, and assuming Alabama does make the Playoff, he’ll be uber determined to be the last quarterback standing when it really counts in January. Simpson knows when to give credit to the opposition, like he did last Saturday, but that fire burns inside and in a 1-game situation with everything on the line, he feels like a leader who would be hard to beat.
Tide fans would love to find out over the next few months.
3. The Tide were due to lose a game — now they can let it rip
It was always going to be really hard for Alabama to win 11 in a row after the Florida State disaster in Week 1. But the Tide almost pulled it off, that is assuming they do what they’re supposed to do against Eastern Illinois and Auburn these next few weeks. The attrition of the SEC gauntlet combined with the recent troubling dip in offensive output provided the recipe for a loss against a stout, opportunistic team like Oklahoma.
Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened in Week 12, and it took an avalanche of Bama errors to barely do the Tide in. It’s almost impossible these days, especially in the SEC, to navigate September, October and November without a setback. Texas A&M is trying to pull it off. Alabama tried but couldn’t, and now with 2 losses it knows there is absolutely no more margin for error.
There is motivation mixed with desperation now after those latest CFP rankings, and that can be a brutal combination to deal with for opponents. The Crimson Tide don’t want to let 2 months of excellence go to waste. The schedule, those long stretches with hardly a turnover and those other long stretches recently with hardly any points finally caught up with them, and it was all on display last Saturday.
A loss finally happened after 8 straight wins. Now Alabama can take a collective deep breath, realize the good position it has put itself in because of that win streak and start anew with December and, just maybe, January in its thoughts. Now the Tide can reset and let it rip instead of trying to win every single game from September through January.
4. This defense can win games in December — and January
Those turnovers really did lose the game for Alabama last Saturday, because the Tide defense was certainly up to the task. The numbers are striking. Kane Wommack’s stingy unit only allowed a measly 212 total yards and 12 first downs. Oklahoma was just 3-for-13 on 3rd downs. The effort by Alabama’s defense was more than good enough to win that game. It was pretty stellar, actually.
But sometimes stellar defensive efforts just aren’t rewarded for whatever reason, and this was 1 of those times. Allowing 23 points to Oklahoma should’ve been good enough to win, at home especially, and 17 of those Sooners points weren’t the defense’s fault. There was Ty Simpson’s pick-6, when the defense wasn’t even out there, and then those 2 fumbles by Ryan Williams on the punt return and Simpson on the sack set OU up with ridiculously short fields, putting the D behind the 8-ball.
So, amid the agony of Saturday’s loss, there was a big, bright silver lining. If the Tide had simply taken care of the ball the way they had basically all season, the winning streak would’ve reached 9 because the defense continued to thrive. Since allowing 31 points in the Week 1 loss at Florida State, Wommack’s crew hasn’t allowed more than 24 points in any game. The consistency over the past 9 games has really been remarkable, and that includes the past 7 games against SEC competition.
The win streak finally ended. The defensive dominance didn’t. That kind of dominance can win Playoff games in December and January, in hostile environments and on neutral fields. Bama just has to get there.
5. Ryan Grubb, offensive mastermind, can still figure this out
There’s no hiding behind the defense anymore. Grubb’s offense is in a certifiable funk, and it finally cost Bama a game, despite the best efforts of that defense. Since putting up 37 points against Tennessee in Week 8, the Tide were held to 1 offensive touchdown against South Carolina until the final few minutes of the game, managed just 20 points in a grind-it-out win over LSU and then scored 21 points last Saturday in the loss to Oklahoma.
Are these talented defenses they’re playing against on a weekly basis in the SEC? Sure, especially the past 2 games against LSU and Oklahoma. Life’s tough in the SEC, which is common knowledge, but Grubb was brought in to be a difference maker. For the most part in 2025, he has been, though not lately, and now it’s his job to change that down the stretch and in the Playoff, assuming Bama gets there.
Grubb nearly won a national title with Kalen DeBoer 2 years ago at Washington, and the dynamic duo reunited this year to bring that same success to Alabama’s offense. Grubb has no doubt played a role in Ty Simpson’s rapid development into a Heisman Trophy contender this fall but, remember, this is also Grubb’s first foray in the SEC.
This is precisely the time when Grubb can back up that offensive mastermind label, make the proper adjustments and reignite the Tide all the way to January.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
