The Summer tradition is here. Athlon Sports placed Alabama in the Gator Bowl this week, outside the college football playoff field entirely. National publications now slot the Tide anywhere from fifth to seventh in the SEC. Alabama playoff hopes have become a preseason punching bag, and the opener is still seven weeks away. Meanwhile, Alabama sent three players to SEC media days this week to start answering. Doubting the Tide in July has quietly become a national tradition.
The Case Against Alabama Playoff
Analysts at CBS Sports give Alabama the friendliest treatment, and even that lands at a fifth-place or sixth-place conference finish. Their game-by-game predictions end with three losses and no signature win. PFSN sits at the low end, ranking the Tide seventh with a 33.1 percent playoff shot. Everything in between says roughly the same thing. Even the prediction accounts on social media have joined the pile-on. One viral June forecast pegged the Tide at 8-4, tied for seventh in the league.
The Three-Loss Math Behind The Doubt
Alabama opens with East Carolina in less than 60 days from now, and then visits Kentucky just one week later. Florida State, the team that ruined last season’s opener, comes to Bryant-Denny in September. South Carolina and a trip to Mississippi State fill out that month. Georgia arrives on October 10, and a trip to Tennessee follows one week later. November brings Texas A&M at home, a visit to LSU, and the Iron Bowl to close. A trip to Vanderbilt and a Chattanooga tune-up sit between those last two. All of it comes inside the SEC’s first nine-game conference schedule. Nobody in the league has ever navigated a slate built like this one. Only the East Carolina and Chattanooga dates qualify as breathers on the whole slate.
The Roster Concerns With Real Teeth
A brand new quarterback will operate behind a completely rebuilt offensive line this fall. That line returns exactly one starter from last season. The quarterback will be a first-time starter no matter who wins the job. Indiana flattened Alabama 38-3 in the Rose Bowl quarterfinal, and the eventual champion won the trenches decisively. New offensive line coach Adrian Klemm has exactly one summer to fix the front. The ground game needs fixing too after averaging just 3.4 yards per carry. Five-star newcomer Ezavier Crowell arrives with hype, and hype has never blocked anybody. That combination weighs on Alabama playoff hopes more than any single ranking does. Skeptics simply do not believe the fixes arrived fast enough.
Is The Doubt Actually Fair?
Alabama playoff hopes still rest on a defense that allowed just 19.2 points per game last season. That mark ranked 20th nationally, and the core of the unit returns. Safeties Bray Hubbard and Keon Sabb both turned down the NFL to anchor it. Hubbard led the SEC with four interceptions during that 2025 run. Defensive coordinator Kane Wommack restocked the front seven through the portal as well. Wommack told reporters in May the group sits in a “pretty good place” entering summer.
Alabama also became the first team ever to win a road playoff game, beating Oklahoma in Norman. Cornerback Zabien Brown delivered a pick-six in that win. Head coach Kalen DeBoer sits at 20-8 through two seasons with a playoff trip. The 2025 team went 10-2 in the regular season before that run. The offense returns its most dangerous weapon at receiver.
Austin Mack and Keelon Russell both flashed during the spring game. Whoever wins that job inherits real talent everywhere except the trenches. The betting market reads the roster the same way. Kalshi priced Alabama’s playoff chances at 46 percent this spring, the 11th-best odds in the country. Those odds sit closer to the contenders than to the seventh-place crowd.
So the doubt holds real weight, and it lives almost entirely in the trenches and the quarterback room. Talent was never the problem for a program still answering big questions. A three-loss October requires Alabama to lose every single marquee game on the slate. That outcome is possible, and history says it is far from guaranteed. Kentucky in week two will answer the road questions before October even arrives. Bama Hammer calls undervaluing Alabama “common fare” at this point, and the receipts back that up. An average offensive line probably keeps Alabama playoff hopes alive deep into November.
For now, Bama Nation should let the projections pile up and save every single one. If the last two Julys are any indication, come October this argument will settle the hard way.
Main Image: David Leong-Imagn Images
