Why I don’t believe Alabama deserves to start as a top-10 team in 2026
Published:
It hasn’t happened since 2008.
Back then, some cat by the name “Nick Saban” was just trying to show Alabama fans that he could avoid losses to teams like Louisiana-Monroe. Nobody was surprised when a 7-6 team didn’t start in the top 10 of the 2008 preseason AP Poll. If anything, Alabama was given the benefit of the doubt just to crack the preseason Top 25 (No. 24).
The rest, of course, is history. Alabama went 12-2 and the following year, it began a streak of 15 consecutive years of both starting and finishing inside the top 10 of the AP Poll. It turned out, as long as Saban was on that sideline, the most obvious preseason take one could have was that Alabama deserved to start inside the top 10. You could’ve found better arguments against things like “water is wet.”
But on the heels of an “eye-of-the-beholder” season in Tuscaloosa, Year 3 of the post-Saban era, or rather, Year 3 of the Kalen DeBoer era, we could see something that hasn’t happened since 2008.
Alabama starting outside of the top 10 makes sense.
Before you tell me that I’m anti-DeBoer, I don’t believe he’s on the hot seat in the way that others will tell you, nor do I believe the guy who gets rumored for every major Big Ten opening is going anywhere. At least not yet. DeBoer left a runner-up Washington squad and took on the role of “Saban successor” for a reason, and that reason wasn’t to lose 4 games on an annual basis. He wants to win a national title, and someone who currently has an 8-3 record vs. AP Top 10 teams — his .727 winning percentage in those matchups is easily the best among active coaches with at least 5 such games — has a more direct path to do that than plenty of his peers.
I’m more of a DeBoer believer than not, but with his 2026 team, I’ve got more questions than answers.
That goes beyond the quarterback situation in a post-Ty Simpson world
It’s possible that former 5-star recruit Keelon Russell reminds people of 2021 Bryce Young during his Heisman-winning redshirt freshman season. It’s also possible that in his 4th season with DeBoer, Austin Mack will assume the role of QB1 and make good on the time that coaching staff invested in him.
Neither one of those scenarios, however, are imminent, especially after there was plenty of meat left on the bone from the offenses that Simpson and Jalen Milroe ran. Mack’s Rose Bowl relief of Simpson marked the first time in his college career that he completed a pass against Power Conference competition, while Russell has yet to check that box.
Is that a death sentence for Alabama’s 2026 outlook? Of course not, but in the past, a question at QB1 was usually aided by Alabama having other obvious areas of strength. The secondary? With Bray Hubbard, Keon Sabb, Zabien Brown and Dijon Lee back, that unit will be a strength. After that, though, find me position groups that are set-it-and-forget-it strengths.
Yhonzae Pierre was a key return announcement as Alabama’s best pass rusher. He and Hubbard are also the only 2 returners who had multiple sacks last year. Kane Wommack’s unit played mostly well down the stretch, but finding that pass-rush consistently was an issue for a 2025 Alabama defense that was loaded with returning experience. One of the few noteworthy portal additions was versatile defensive lineman Devan Thompkins from USC, but it was mostly a 1-way street out of Tuscaloosa with defensive linemen and edge-rushers.
Most troubling was Alabama’s approach to fixing the ground game
The unit that somehow finished with an even worse rushing yards/game number than the 1955 squad initially appeared to be adding NC State transfer Hollywood Smothers. That made sense, considering that Smothers forced as many missed tackles (48) as Alabama’s entire backfield in 2025. But then Smothers flipped to Texas and Alabama was left with making sure it retained Daniel Hill and AK Dear. The Tide did that, which means those combined 94 carries for 424 rushing yards are back for another season.
(I actually like Hill and wanted him to get more work, though I understand why an underwhelming showing in pass protection probably limited that.)
To repeat, Alabama’s worst season ever running the ball resulted in not adding any transfer running backs while adding 2 inexperienced offensive linemen from Michigan.
Set it and forget it? Not quite.
But once upon a time, wasn’t Alabama’s receiver room considered to be the ultimate advantage? Wasn’t that the area that DeBoer was going to overhaul from the jump after Alabama hit a rare lull late in the Saban era? Well, receiving yards leader Germie Bernard is off to the NFL Draft, while touchdown catch leader Isaiah Horton left for Texas A&M. At least Ryan Williams is back, right? All he did after becoming the youngest college football video game cover ever was finish No. 20 in the SEC in receiving yards (689) and No. 22 in receiving touchdowns (4). He did, however, lead the SEC with 10 … drops.
Yikes.
This offensive staff is banking on its ability to develop talent. That’s going to determine what happens with the 2026 version of Alabama, and perhaps the DeBoer era as a whole. The Tide deserve credit for not only reaching the SEC Championship, but also for rallying back to earn a Playoff victory at Oklahoma. Alabama also deserves a bit of skepticism after a trio of lopsided losses in which it looked like anything but a top-10 team.
It’s strange to think that Alabama technically didn’t play as a top-10 team when a roller-coaster season came to a crashing halt with a historically lopsided loss against Indiana in the Rose Bowl. Sure, that sort of thing happened during the Saban era, but already under DeBoer, it has 9 games played outside of the AP top 10. That’s as many as Alabama had during that 15-year stretch (2009-23) with Saban.
Perhaps AP voters (I’m not one) will be willing to give Alabama the benefit of the doubt and continue that preseason top-10 streak in 2026. Usually a team that loses 4 games in consecutive seasons with the amount of turnover that Alabama will have doesn’t get that kind of grace.
Alternatively, maybe that’s exactly what DeBoer and Co. need heading into a season. After all, this is clearly a new era in Tuscaloosa.
You don’t have to look at a preseason ranking to see that.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
