Happy Thursday, everyone.
As Brent covered last night, Michigan fired head coach Sherrone Moore after a bizarre and dark episode that could very easily have turned tragic. Kalen DeBoer was immediately named as a top target, despite his assurances to Alabama fans earlier this season that Tuscaloosa is a place that college football coaches just don’t leave.
Dennis Franchione would disagree. Look, none of us can know what Kalen is thinking. What we do know is that Michigan is a blue blood program with
plenty of money, it’s much closer to Kalen’s South Dakota roots, and Ryan Grubb’s wife is a Michigan alum from Detroit who still works in Michigan. Courtney Morgan is a Michigan alum who curiously left his alma mater in 2022 after one year in the GM role, to join DeBoer at Washington.
You can bet that Michigan has already been in talks with Jimmy Sexton about DeBoer. He is going to get a handsome offer, and if he stays then Alabama fans know that he truly wants to be here. But, Alabama also may not be willing to match an outrageous offer if the Wolverines are desperate enough to make one.
And this is just the kind of distraction that the team doesn’t need.
In any case, there is a game to be played in eight days. Katie Windham wrote about some areas that need improvement, the offensive line chief among them.
So many of Alabama’s offensive issues start up front. Alabama has not been able to run the ball well all year and finished with negative rushing yards against Georgia in the SEC title game. Pass protection hasn’t been great either as Alabama is ranked 86th in the country with 25 sacks allowed. It seemed like Simpson was being pressured almost every time he dropped back to pass going up against the Georgia defensive front.
Alabama has been dealing with some issues on the offensive line with center Parker Brailsford not at full health according to DeBoer. Guard Geno VanDeMark has also missed time with injury. Regardless of who is available for the CFP, the play has to be better overall. Of course, there needs to be improvement from Simpson and all of Alabama’s running backs, but help from the line will only make the other units on offense better.
Nick Kelly notes that, absent injury, changing quarterbacks at this stage isn’t the answer for this team.
Did Simpson miss some throws in the Georgia game? Yes. Could he have played better? Yes.
But was he the No. 1 problem for the offense in the Georgia game? No. Not even close.
Alabama’s receivers had their worst game of the season in the SEC Championship Game. They dropped 20.8% of the passes, per Pro Football Focus. That was the highest since the Florida State game, when the Crimson Tide dropped 14.8%. Alabama had six drops in the SEC Championship Game alone after 14 total in prior conference games.
Meanwhile, Simpson faced the most pressure he’s seen in any SEC game. Georgia pressured him 18 times, per PFF. The previous SEC high was 15 times against Missouri.
Before anyone starts about Tua and Jalen, times were much different then. Alabama was still blowing the doors off of most SEC teams, which gave Tua substantially more experience at this point of the season than either of Alabama’s 2025 backups. Throwing Austin Mack or Keelon Russell to the wolves in the playoffs just doesn’t make any sense.
Paul Myerberg is already firing off predictions, and he believes that Alabama beats Oklahoma before succumbing to Indiana.
No. 9 Alabama 21, No. 8 Oklahoma 16: Oklahoma won the earlier matchup in Tuscaloosa, sparking the Sooners’ late rebirth as a playoff contender. Look for this one to be a low-scoring, defense-focused affair defined by which team wins the turnover battle. That favors the Tide, but only barely.
Emilee Smarr continues the series celebrating Alabama’s first national title in 1925.
The starters who carried Alabama football to its first national title in 1925 are celebrated in the program’s history, but the foundation of that legendary squad was laid just as much by the depth of its backups.
These players – a mix of future stars, versatile workhorses and determined reserve players battling through injury − made sure the Crimson Tide wouldn’t be one-and-done, many going on to take the field in the program’s 1926 national championship. From eventual team captains to track stars, NFL champions and local legends, their contributions stretched beyond the stat sheet and etched the identity of Alabama football.
Last, Notre Dame’s hissy fit is beyond the pale. They initially garnered sympathy thanks to the committee’s rug pull on them, but they have quickly reminded the college football world just how entitled they are.
Perhaps things would have been different if Southern Cal was a little better or Syracuse hadn’t fallen apart or Purdue was further along in its rebuild. But no program, even Notre Dame, can truly position itself to win a national championship in this playoff era with two or three decent games a year, most of them early in the season.
By the way, Notre Dame’s 2026 schedule isn’t shaping up much better. Maybe Wisconsin, Michigan State, Stanford or North Carolina will get their act together. But aside from a home game against Miami and a trip to Southern Cal, it’s not good.
And it’s probably going to get worse, especially if Notre Dame can’t come to an agreement with USC to extend their longstanding rivalry. Texas, also smarting from missing the CFP, has made noise about canceling its series with Notre Dame in 2028-29. Athletic directors in other leagues, who learned from Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger on Sunday about the memorandum of understanding that grants Notre Dame preferential playoff access, are threatening to freeze them out of future schedules.
Notre Dame brass has reportedly reached out to both the Big Ten and SEC, but neither is likely to give them the sweetheart deal they got with the ACC. Still, Notre Dame independence may not sustain much longer.
That’s about it for now. Have a great day.
Roll Tide.
