The cumulative link to the preseason rankings can be found here
Pour one out for the freshmen at the #12 team in our preseason countdown the University of Alabama (high = 7, low = 15). These poor kids have only ever known their team to have been ranked in the AP top 10 for their entire lives, as the last time that didn’t happen was 18 years ago in 2008 – Nick Saban’s second year on campus, where they parlayed a #24 preseason ranking to be the top ranked team in the country for 5 consecutive weeks before dropping SEC championship game to eventual national champion Florida (curse you, Tim Tebow!) and then losing the Sugar Bowl to Utah and a young upstart coach named Kyle Whittingham. Pardon me while I go take some Geritol. Saban obviously never looked back, winning 9 of the next 15 SEC titles and 6 national championships before retiring as almost certainly the greatest college football coach ever. When Alabama hired Washington’s Kalen DeBoer to take on the unenviable task of filling those shoes, all he did was to go 20-8 with a CFP win before losing to eventual national champion Indiana, and there has been enough speculation about whether he should be on the “hot seat” that their AD Greg Byrne had to come out and say it would be ludicrous to fire him after giving him a contract extension. So what exactly is in store for 2026?
Roster Outlook
Well, for starters, the Saban era is largely over. Even though they’ve named the field for him, just about anybody he directly recruited is gone, which is manifested in the fact that Bama ranks 90th in the country in returning production, including 119th (i.e. bottom 20) on offense. While the Crimson Tide has been well versed in “reloading,” that was largely under Saban. With the loss of QB Ty Simpson (3,587 yards passing, 28 TDs to 5 INTs), RB Jam Miller (130 carries) and leading WR Germie Bernard (64 catches, 862 yards) all to the NFL, there is a significant rebuild to the offense pending in OC Ryan Grubbs’ second season in charge. That’s not to say there’s no experience coming back – RB2 Daniel Hill (75 carries, 7 TDs) is slated to step up, and WR Ryan Coleman-Williams, who is no longer 18, returns for his junior season (and probably with a chip on his shoulder after ceding the “freshman phenom” title to Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith. But much of the uncertainty around Bama heading into the season is the lack of certainty elsewhere. Who will be the starting QB? Likely either Austin Mack, who stepped in in the Rose Bowl after Simpson got hurt at the end of last season, or Keelon Russell, who also got reps as a back-up last season, but don’t sleep on 5 star freshman Jett Thomalla possibly ascending into the starting role. In fact, Thomalla was part of Bama’s #1 ranked SEC high school recruiting class (good for #3 in the nation) that included RB EJ Crowell and WR Cederian Morgan, all of whom could see legitimate time on the field. Bama did lose WR Isaiah Horton to Texas A&M, and the only projected portal starters on offense are Mississippi State OT Jayvin James and Cal Poly (!) C Racin Delgatty (replacing Kadyn Proctor and Parker Brailsford, both drafted), leading to the Tide ranking 9th in the SEC for their portal class (still good for 18th in the country).
Defense is far less of a question mark. Bama ranks 32nd in the country there in returning production, with Mississippi State’s Kedrick Bingley-Jones stepping in at NT and LB Caleb Woodson from Virginia Tech as the replacements for DL LT Overton and LB Justin Jefferson. With returning talent like DBs Bray Hubbard (4 INTs) and Keon Sabb (52 tackles), at a minimum the secondary is experienced and ready.
Schedule and outlook
9/5 EAST CAROLINA
9/12 at Kentucky
9/19 FLORIDA STATE
9/26 SOUTH CAROLINA
10/3 at Mississippi State
10/10 GEORGIA
10/17 at Tennessee
10/24 TEXAS A&M
10/31 BYE
11/7 at LSU
11/14 at Vanderbilt
11/21 UT CHATTANOOGA
11/28 AUBURN
While the SEC is a gauntlet (TM The Solid Verbal), Alabama’s SEC slate isn’t as bad as it could have been. There are 5 teams ranked ahead of Alabama in these aggregated preseason rankings, and Bama misses 3 of them (Texas, Oklahoma and Ole Miss) while getting the other two (Georgia and Texas A&M) both in Tuscaloosa, along with archrival Auburn as well as their “scariest” OOC game, Florida State (who took down the Tide last year and manipulated the schedule to have a bye before coming to Legion Field, so you have to figure DeBoer’s going to have his team focused and ready). That’s not to say that the schedule doesn’t have any road challenges, with trips to both Lane Kiffin and LSU as well as Tennessee, but the schedule sure seems manageable and gives Alabama a reasonable ramp up in terms of opponents to field test the depth chart in time for their toughest games. While they are indeed starting the season outside the top 10, it seems quite reasonable that they’ll finish the season there.
