Alabama spent September and October feverishly and thoroughly wiping away the stain of 1 bad Saturday in late August, and all of that hard work has landed the Crimson Tide in a shiny new car that’s zooming toward a College Football Playoff berth.
That’s what it looks like in Tuscaloosa right now, with Alabama reeling off 7 straight wins, 4 of them over ranked teams, and that’s what it looks like to the college football world outside T-Town. It’s been a remarkable 2-month transformation from that terrible afternoon in Tallahassee. The tide has turned in 2025 because the Tide have turned serious doubt into a newfound belief that glory can be achieved without Nick Saban being on the sideline.
There is a feeling that’s building around this team as its 2nd bye fades and the LSU game draws closer. Even when Alabama played down to its competition a few weeks ago in that escape act at South Carolina, it woke up in time with a flurry of magic reserved only for those special teams that know they can go far.
Bama wants to go to Atlanta. It also wants to go back to the Playoff after a 1-year hiatus. If the regular season ended right now, the 4th-ranked team in the country would absolutely be Playoff-bound. But it doesn’t. There’s still a month’s worth of land mines left on that path to the Playoff and that includes hurting rivals who want to ruin what Kalen DeBoer has built in Year 2.
Can Alabama survive its arduous stretch run? Sure it can, but it’ll need to check these 5 boxes to punch that Playoff ticket:
1. Beware of reeling rivals with interim head coaches
When you have as much at stake as Alabama will over the next month, you can’t afford to leave anything to chance. It doesn’t matter who’s on the other sideline. But when there are old, bitter rivals on that other sideline, rivals who are down and hurting with recently fired head coaches, that’s a big reason to be at attention and on point. It can’t be any other way for the Tide when they host LSU this Saturday night and play at Auburn on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
Yes, the 2 tradition-rich programs with the Tigers nickname are a combined 3-8 in the SEC, which is why they are now being led by interim head coaches in early November. So, what is there to worry about for Bama? Well, everything, because of that old adage that a wounded animal, Tigers in this case, is the most dangerous animal. The players on both of those rosters are feeling badly right now, pondering their futures, with some certainly ready to hit the transfer portal for the 2026 season.
But you know what else they are? They’re super motivated and maybe a little (or a lot) angry, and they want to show their interim coaches that what led to those firings isn’t acceptable. For LSU, it’s Frank Wilson. For Auburn, it’s DJ Durkin. Those players, at least for now, are their players, and they’ll want very badly to attach something special to an otherwise forgettable fall. That something special would be knocking off Alabama and at least putting a dent in their hated rival’s Playoff plans.
Wilson and Durkin also have a golden opportunity right now to prove themselves again as head coaches. Wilson has only been a head coach at UTSA and McNeese State, going a combined 26-40. Durkin went 10-15 in 2 seasons at Maryland, and he actually has done this interim routine before and in the SEC, coaching Florida to a win in the Birmingham Bowl at the end of the 2014 season after Will Muschamp stepped down. Those Gators rallied around Durkin and these Auburn players can surely do the same on Nov. 29 against Alabama.
Both interim coaches will be gunning for the Tide this month. So will their players. Their seasons have already been lost, so what more is there to lose? For Alabama, there is everything to lose. That’s a really dangerous combination. It’s something Kalen DeBoer and his players are going to have to navigate if they want to make it back to Atlanta and the College Football Playoff.
2. Beware of a rested team that just won in Knoxville
Bama’s other remaining SEC opponent besides LSU and Auburn will be a ranked, high-octane Oklahoma team that will arrive in T-Town on Nov. 15 fresh off a bye and a season-saving victory at Tennessee the week before. If the 2 downtrodden but dangerous Tigers teams at LSU and Auburn weren’t enough to worry about, the Sooners will provide plenty of more concern in Week 12.
Unlike LSU and Auburn, Oklahoma is still very much in Playoff contention itself. The Sooners were 12th in the first CFP rankings that were released on Tuesday night, and when they visit Alabama they’ll be really rested and really sky-high after that primetime victory at Neyland Stadium that saved them from that dreaded 3rd loss. Oklahoma just prevailed in a hostile environment, so it won’t be intimidated in the slightest in another hostile environment 2 weeks later.
Bama will have its hands full with John Mateer healthy again and back at the helm of an offense that can put up points with the best of them. The Sooners know that if they can duplicate what they did in Knoxville and win in Tuscaloosa, they’ll suddenly be in prime position to earn a Playoff berth. They have Mizzou and LSU at home to end the regular season, which will be hard but doable. They’ll be favored in both games.
They won’t be favored against Alabama, but they ruined the Tide’s Playoff hopes last November in Norman and they’d just love to beat Kalen DeBoer again. Of course, this has proven to be a different Bama team in 2025, new starting quarterback and all, but there are a lot of players on this team who were there last year and remember the embarrassment of that loss. This Tide team will need to cross another threshold a week from Saturday by ruining Oklahoma’s Playoff hopes this time.
3. Don’t assume the job’s done just by getting to Atlanta
This is where it gets tricky, or it would get tricky if the Tide take care of business this month and earn a spot in the SEC Championship Game. There were rumblings last year when Championship Weekend arrived with the first 12-team Playoff format on deck. What if a prospective Playoff team lost in its conference title game? Should that loss count against them or should it be largely ignored, because it’s an extra game tacked onto the regular season that’s earned by great play over the course of 3 months?
If Alabama loses a game in November and still sneaks into the SEC title game through a tiebreaker, then it’s probably asking for trouble if it then loses in Atlanta. But let’s assume Bama runs the table and finishes 11-1. If a 1-loss Tide team loses the SEC title game after winning 11 in a row, then things could still get dicey on Selection Sunday. That’s why Kalen DeBoer’s team must check this box, too — just go ahead and win in Atlanta, raise that SEC trophy and guarantee that you’re going to the Playoff.
An 11-1 Tide team can’t get to the SEC title game and assume they’re already Playoff-bound just because they’ve reeled off 11 straight wins and went 8-0 in conference play. Yes, you can point to Texas last year and say there would be wiggle room for Bama even with a loss in Atlanta, because the 2024 Longhorns lost the SEC title game in overtime to Georgia yet still got into the Playoff as a 2-loss team and made it all the way to the semifinals.
That’s all comforting but that was last year. Too many other things can happen on Championship Weekend, and maybe the loser in Atlanta doesn’t get in this time around. That’s why Alabama has to do what Alabama has usually done in recent years when it gets to the SEC title game — win. Then it can enjoy that first-round Playoff bye as a reward without sweating it out on Selection Sunday.
4. Feed Jam Miller more because he matters that much
Winning 11 in a row, then winning an SEC title and being a Playoff team is almost impossible to pull off without much of a running game. Yet here Alabama is, sitting at 7-1 and on the verge of doing just that with its leading rusher barely cracking the 300-yard mark. Yes, Jam Miller missed the first 3 games of the season but he’s only averaging 3.8 yards per carry this year and he’s only scored 2 touchdowns.
It’s been a grind for Miller, to say the least, but he’s shown flashes this year, running for 136 yards against Vanderbilt and 85 the following week against Mizzou. Miller’s still got it in him, and that’s why he needs to keep getting chances to put it on display again down the stretch and, just maybe, in the Playoff.
The 12 carries against Tennessee and the 10 carries against South Carolina aren’t enough. Miller got 22 carries in the Vanderbilt game and 20 in the Mizzou game, and everybody saw what the results were. At some point in the next month, you would think anyway, the Tide are going to need something substantial from Miller to get where they want to go.
5. The defense can’t rest — it’s come too far
While a lot of the focus and praise for the Tide’s turnaround has centered on Heisman contender Ty Simpson, first-year offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb and the emergence of Germie Bernard, quietly the Bama defense has stood tall over the past 2 months. Since getting shredded for 31 points and 230 yards rushing in the loss at Florida State, Kane Wommack’s unit has calmed down and settled in nicely.
Sure, Bama’s D has bent a little, but it hasn’t broken. The Tide haven’t allowed more than 24 points in a game since, which means Simpson and the offense haven’t been asked to outscore anyone during this 7-game winning streak.
There have been huge plays at just the right moments, like Zabien Brown’s 99-yard pick-6 against Tennessee, DaShawn Jones’ pick-6 against South Carolina and Deontae Lawson’s strip late in that same game. Those season-turning plays combined with the overall consistency has gotten Bama to the precipice of the Playoff. That same formula needs to continue for another month.
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.
