It’s not even March yet, when the surging Alabama men’s basketball team will get its turn to do what the football team couldn’t in January.
Spring football practices haven’t quite sprung yet, and the annual A-Day Spring Game that was recently set for April 11 is still about 6 weeks away.
With all that in mind and with all that’s still in the very near future, it would be ridiculous to even think for 1 nanosecond about delving into Alabama‘s 2026 schedule, which doesn’t even dawn for another 6 months.
Right? Yeah, right.
This is Alabama football we’re talking about here, and after a few hours (or maybe a few days) of teeth gnashing about the Rose Bowl meltdown against Indiana, a rabid fan base that can’t get enough had probably flipped that fictional hourglass over to count down to the 2026 season.
The sands in those hourglasses will run out sooner than you think, because time flies when you’re already anticipating Year 3 of the Kalen DeBoer era with equal parts hope and hesitation. Before you know it, the East Carolina Pirates will be sprinting out of the tunnel at Bryant-Denny Stadium on Sept. 5, at a time still yet to be determined.
And although that fact alone means we still have ample time to sift through Bama’s 2026 schedule, there’s no time like right now, because that football-mad fan base really can’t get enough … so here goes our way-too-early breakdown, roughly 6 months before that opening kickoff. We’ll crunch the 12-game journey into 5 general thoughts, leading from early September to late November:
1. An early look at Will Stein and an early shot at payback
After the opener against East Carolina, which by the way was a 9-win team last season in the American Conference, comes a Week 2 trip to Lexington for an earlier-than-usual SEC opener against Kentucky. Normally, an Alabama-Kentucky football game is nothing to sneeze at, but the Wildcats aren’t coached by Mark Stoops as they have been for the past 13 seasons.Â
There’s finally been a change at the top of Kentucky football, and it was a flashy hire in Will Stein, who ran the Oregon offense for the past 3 seasons and did a great enough job at it that he earned a head coaching gig in the SEC. And as if scripted by the SEC, Stein’s first big challenge in Year 1 after the Wildcats’ opener against Youngstown State will come against mighty Alabama on Sept. 12. We don’t have a kickoff time to attach to this juicy early season showdown or to any of Bama’s games right now, but rest assured lots of curious eyes will be on this one to see how Stein does in his very first SEC game and against an Alabama defense.
Assuming East Carolina doesn’t get in the way the week before, this will be Bama’s first 2026 benchmark, so it’ll only take until Week 2 to get that. The Tide simply can’t afford another early season road failure like the one they suffered last season in Week 1 at Florida State, and an ultra-talented offensive mind like Stein who’s a stranger in SEC circles would seem to be the exact kind of coach who could potentially make that happen. It could be a tricky trip to the Bluegrass State because of the Stein factor, but it most definitely will be as attractive a Bama-UK football matchup that we’ve had in some time, no matter when the kickoff time is set for.
Did we mention Florida State? Alabama and FSU could never be confused as football rivals, despite their longstanding success as programs and despite their proximity to each other (roughly 313 miles). But last season might have flipped the switch on the whole Tide-Noles thing, because that 31-17 Week 1 whitewashing that Florida State gave Bama in Tallahassee made every serious Crimson Tide fan flip out, and for good reason. An FSU team that would win only 5 games last season gashed Bama to the tune of 230 yards rushing, and after the national TV takedown of the Tide was over, delirious Seminoles fans filled every last corner of the Doak Campbell Stadium field.
It was a humbling, dare we say embarrassing, start to the 2025 season and although Alabama overcame it and still made the College Football Playoff, bad seeds were planted that ultimately came to roost when eventual national champion Indiana gashed the Tide on the ground, too, in the Playoff quarterfinal loss. Fast-forward to Week 3 of the upcoming season, Sept. 19 to be exact, when Mike Norvell will bring Florida State north to Bryant-Denny Stadium, where payback will be on everybody’s mind — coaches, players and fans, whether they want to admit it or not.
Like the Kentucky matchup the week before, the FSU-Alabama rematch will be one of the most anticipated early season games in 2026 and should get an attractive kickoff time/TV designation to match. And while getting that potential payback won’t guarantee anything for Alabama in the big picture this season, it would help rinse the stench from that forgettable late August day last year in Tallahassee. Of course, it would also help if the Tide were 3-0 by the time they get through navigating the UK-FSU back-to-back.
2. Golden opportunity to start fast in SEC before gauntlet
This is where Alabama must take care of business, no questions asked. Because Week 4 brings a South Caroliina program to Tuscaloosa that managed just 1 SEC win in 2025 and 4 victories overall. The school decided to bring back head coach Shane Beamer to try to fix his own mess, and the Crimson Tide would be wise not to play with their food in front of the home crowd.
The following week brings a similar challenge, only on the road, as Alabama travels to Starkville on the first Saturday of October to face a Mississippi State program that also went 1-7 in the SEC last season, managing 5 victories overall. The Bulldogs slogged their way to a postseason appearance despite a 5-7 record and, not surprisingly, got torched for 43 points by Wake Forest in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. Like Beamer, Jeff Lebby has a lot of work to do at Mississippi State with a 7-18 record in his first 2 seasons.
Bama needs to not be part of the solution for Beamer or Lebby in 2026. Counting the Kentucky game, the Tide could — and, let’s face it, should — be 3-0 in the SEC as the familiar October gauntlet beckons.
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3. Gauntlet arrives Oct. 10 in T-Town, wearing red and black
Remember, the SEC journey is 9 games long starting this fall. No more of that 8-game conference schedule stuff. That means Bama will only be one-third of the way through when those bitter rivals in red and black arrive from Athens for what surely will be one of the featured games of Week 6. Two years ago, when Georgia came to Bryant-Denny, a 17-year-old freshman named Ryan Williams said hello to the college football world, helping the Tide outlast the Dawgs in a 41-34 classic.
Bama nipped Georgia again last season in Athens in another late-September thriller, doing it with defense this time. But we all know what happened between the SEC powers last December in Atlanta, so forget Kalen DeBoer being 2-0 against Kirby Smart in the regular season. Smart has the SEC and national championship hardware and DeBoer doesn’t, and revenge will be in the offering in Tuscaloosa if DeBoer’s guys are up to the task. Another key tidbit: After diving into the SEC deep end with Georgia being its SEC opener the past 2 seasons, the Tide won’t see the Dawgs until Oct. 10 this time around, giving them time to settle in a little.
There’ll be no more time to settle in once Georgia arrives though, because after the Dawgs leave town, the Tide will head to Knoxville for the “Third Saturday in October” collision with Tennessee. Who knows who will be playing quarterback for the Volunteers by the time Oct. 17 comes, but with Neyland Stadium becoming sort of a house of horrors for Bama in its past 2 trips there, it shouldn’t matter. The challenge to finally get out of there with a win will be great.
The 3-week SEC gauntlet ends on Oct. 24 with a visit from Texas A&M, which was a Playoff team last season and has firm designs on getting back. Mike Elko really turned a corner in his 2nd season in College Station, and he’ll have budding star quarterback Marcel Reed back at his side in 2026, making Alabama’s challenge that much greater as it tries to enter its much-needed bye week with a big home victory.
4. After bye on Halloween, tricky road back-to-back awaits
That lone 2026 bye comes at a perfect time on Halloween, as Bama catches its breath from the October gauntlet and gets ready to face Lane Kiffin‘s restocked LSU team in Death Valley. Yeah, it’s an even-numbered year, so the Tide will be playing that early November game in LSU’s lion’s den, which should be on fire all fall as Kiffin arrives to try to do what Brian Kelly couldn’t in Baton Rouge.
If facing Kiffin on the road wasn’t enough of a challenge to start November, the following Saturday puts the Tide back on the road against Vanderbilt, which will be trying to adjust to life without Diego Pavia in 2026. Maybe true freshman phenom Jared Curtis will be starting at quarterback on Nov. 14 in Nashville? Regardless, Tide fans know all too well what happened 2 years ago when Bama played at Vandy. Their top-ranked team in the country went down and the goalposts went down, too, all the way into the nearby Cumberland River.
It was Kalen DeBoer’s first loss as Alabama head coach, a stinging experience nobody involved in the program wants to repeat. When Chattanooga hits Tuscaloosa the week before the Iron Bowl, Bama only wishes to be thinking pleasant thoughts about its challenging 2-week November road trip.
5. An even year means Iron Bowl back in friendly confines
There’s no Cam Coleman to worry about this time around when Auburn comes for the annual regular-season curtain call on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. And the Tide won’t be stepping into haunted Jordan-Hare Stadium to try to grind out a road victory over their most hated rival, either. But Iron Bowls rarely go down easily, even in those even years when Alabama gets the game at Bryant-Denny Stadium, because arguably the most bitter rivalry game in all of college football isn’t supposed to be easy.
Throw in the simple fact that by late November, no matter how things have gone for Alex Golesh thus far in his first season on the Plains, the Tigers will have had nearly a full regular season with Golesh in charge. This means that Bama will likely be getting the best, most polished version of the 2026 Auburn Tigers, and that Kalen DeBoer will oppose the most settled in version of Golesh, who’d love nothing more than to send the ultimate message in his first Iron Bowl.
Naturally, there is always the big-picture factor for Alabama when it faces Auburn, because by Game 12, at least over the past few decades, the Tide are trying to keep their SEC and national title hopes alive and well. They have literally everything at stake, then throw in the rivalry itself and the fact that DeBoer just can’t afford a loss in a home Iron Bowl, not in Year 3, not ever, really.
Is that enough pressure piled on for Alabama to end what surely will be another challenging trip through the SEC? Hey, when you play and coach in Tuscaloosa, high pressure is part of the package, especially when you follow a coaching legend and especially when you haven’t won a national title since way back in 2020. Auburn will almost certainly have nothing to lose when it hits T-Town, except to ruin Bama’s season, like it tries to do every Thanksgiving weekend as an annual underdog.
The friendly confines will no doubt help, but preferred location is hardly ever the whole answer when it comes to the ultimate rivalry game. DeBoer should know this all too well in his 3rd Iron Bowl go-around after his first 2 matchups with Auburn were in doubt going into the 4th quarter. Iron Bowl style points that usually come with dominant wins also usually get tossed in the trash like those Thanksgiving turkey bones, because they’re that hard to come by.
But it doesn’t mean a demanding fan base still full of doubters, at least going into this season, won’t expect it from DeBoer, especially if those style points are needed to make the Playoff again. Right now, as we get ready to slam into March, the 12-step docudrama that is every Alabama football season is still 6 months away, which means it’s right around the corner.
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.
