The 3 things Alabama must do to get its season back on track
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In a rude 7-day reckoning, Alabama went from 5-0 and steamrolling toward the College Football Playoff to 5-2 and steamrolled, with a laundry list of injuries, concerns and questions about even being relevant in November.
Welcome to the world of being Alabama. Welcome to Kalen DeBoer‘s new, unwelcome world. And welcome to the new 2026 world of the 9-game SEC grind, as the hyper-competitive conference beats itself up from within, to a bloody pulp.
That bounce back in Knoxville never happened. The stinging but, in many ways, encouraging home loss to Georgia in Week 6 had no positive carryover whatsoever into Week 7 at Neyland Stadium. Alabama fell flat on its back against Tennessee, and now comes a crossroad in the 2026 season, where the 13th-ranked Tide can either emerge from the canvas and turn things around or devolve into a non-factor in November.
What exactly has to happen for that turnaround to take place? Well, a lot of things, but here are 3 things specifically that Bama must do to get its season back on track with Texas A&M heading to Tuscaloosa on Saturday (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC):
1. Get healthy — or at least start getting healthier and soon
There’s no sugarcoating it. Alabama was awful last Saturday in losing for the third straight time at Neyland Stadium and losing a second consecutive regular-season game for the first time since 2007, which was Nick Saban‘s first season in Tuscaloosa.
Mounting injuries can’t and shouldn’t be used as an excuse for the horrible performance in Week 7, because it’s Alabama and there’s supposed to be a standard and nobody who loves or hates the Tide wants to hear it. But the injuries certainly didn’t help matters as a team already shorthanded coming into Knoxville got even more banged up leaving.
The absences of star wide receiver Ryan Coleman-Williams and starting center Racin Delgatty at Tennessee were a combo crusher. Alabama only managed 10 points in the first half and didn’t manage a point in the second half, which is unimaginable. With Delgatty being out with a knee injury suffered against Georgia, the Tide managed just 54 yards on the ground against the Vols, and though Coleman-Williams has had his struggles with drops, Bama’s passing game was feeble without him with only 147 yards through the air.
In a hostile environment against a really solid Tennessee team wasn’t exactly a good spot to be missing your No. 1 receiver and your newfound anchor on the offensive line. Bama needs both back, ASAP, but when will it happen? During his Monday session with reporters, Kalen DeBoer spoke about his valuable walking wounded, including Delgatty and Coleman-Williams, who a few days later was ruled out against Texas A&M on Wednesday night’s SEC injury report.
Perhaps we won’t know until kickoff on Saturday if any of Bama’s key players will be back in the lineup, and that growing list now includes star cornerback Zabien Brown, who suffered a lower-leg injury against the Vols. DeBoer told reporters on Monday that Brown would be evaluated through this week, and Brown wasn’t even the only notable player to leave last Saturday’s game during the second quarter alone.
He was joined among Bama’s mash unit by budding freshman running back EJ Crowell, who DeBoer said Monday also suffered a lower-leg injury. It’s a credit to Crowell that he’s become such a vital piece for the Tide so quickly as a true freshman. The 5-star gem doesn’t lead Alabama in rushing, but he’s averaging a team-high 6.8 yards per carry and if he’s out for any significant amount of time it would be a killer for Ryan Grubb’s unit.
That’s 4 crucial players Bama was missing in the middle of a wayward Saturday in Knoxville, and then there’s talented defensive lineman Terrance Green, who DeBoer said Monday is week-to-week.
Can the Tide win on Saturday without these 5 players? Yes.
Can the Tide win long-term and keep their Playoff hopes alive without them? No way.
2. Start winning the time-of-possession battle again
The time-of-possession thing with Alabama has been a direct correlation to winning and losing in 2026. In their first 5 games of the season, the Crimson Tide had the edge in this all-important category, and they won all 5 games. It was one of the positive ingredients that went into their 5-0 start — possess the ball more, win the game.
But the past 2 weeks against Georgia and Tennessee have told the opposite story. Against the Bulldogs, Bama had the ball for about 7 minutes less than Georgia, which can be and was significant in such a tight game. Yes, there were many other reasons why the Tide lost to the Dawgs in Week 6, but time of possession can’t be discounted, especially with this particular Alabama team that hadn’t lost the TOP battle yet.
In the Week 7 stinker at Tennessee, the time-of-possession battle was lost again and, not surprisingly, the game was lost, too. Also not surprisingly, Alabama lost worse on the scoreboard in Knoxville as it lost the TOP battle in a bigger way, too. The Vols possessed the ball for nearly 36 minutes, about 12 minutes more than the Tide, and that huge difference in TOP translated to a 26-10 beating on the scoreboard because it wasn’t like Bama was simply scoring quickly — it was hardly scoring and it hardly had the ball.
So, to recap, Alabama is 5-0 when winning the time of possession battle and 0-2 when losing it. That’s a sturdy 7-game sample size that tells you this category means a great deal to this team.
And that means one way Bama can save its season starting Saturday is to get back to owning the time of possession so it can have a better chance to own the scoreboard.
3. Keelon Russell needs to stop turning the ball over
It doesn’t get any simpler than that. Because it couldn’t get much worse for the uber-talented but suddenly mistake-prone quarterback than it did at Tennessee, where Russell tossed 2 interceptions and lost a fumble.
In a high-stakes SEC game between ranked teams, in a hostile environment, the margin for error is razor thin, and a player who’s been such a bright light during his first season as the starting QB simply flamed out.
Russell also lost a fumble the week before in the Georgia loss, and those can be killers in a fight-to-the-finish game like that one. That’s 4 turnovers Russell was personally responsible for in the past 2 weeks and, not surprisingly, Alabama lost both games. The 2 interceptions in Knoxville were the first picks that Russell had thrown since the 2 he tossed in Week 2 at Kentucky, so it had been a while.
But that doesn’t excuse these latest INTs, because in the unforgiving world of the SEC it’s what have you done for me lately. Russell’s fumbles have to stop, too, like right now, starting Saturday against the Aggies.
Russell must get back to being a young budding star and stop being just another young quarterback who turns the ball over a lot.
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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.
