With a bye in Week 9, Alabama football has just three SEC games remaining on the 2026 schedule. The only top-25 opponent currently scheduled to face Kalen DeBoer's team is Lane Kiffin's LSU Tigers.
Will Alabama (6-2, 4-2 SEC) make the College Football Playoff? USA TODAY Sports, for one, believes so.
The Crimson Tide's 31-20 win over Texas A&M at Bryant-Denny Stadium stopped the bleeding after back-to-back losses to Georgia and Tennessee, but it didn't do much to move the playoff needle for Alabama in USA TODAY's latest CFP projections entering Week 9.
College football analyst Erick Smith has the Crimson Tide as the projected No. 9 seed in the playoff and visiting the No. 8 seed Ole Miss Rebels in a first-round game at Vaught Hemingway Stadium in Oxford.
Ole Miss (5-2, 3-2) fell to the Texas Longhorns, 34-27, at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Week 7.
USA TODAY Sports' bold prediction: multiple three-loss teams in College Football Playoff, including Alabama?
Week 8 was another chaotic college football Saturday. Three teams that had been ranked in the top-10 lost, including top-five teams BYU and Texas Tech. That was after an unprecedented Week 7 in which five of the top seven teams in the AP Top 25 all lost.
Citing "increased parity among teams, the expansion of conference play and imperfect scheduling," Smith believes there's a realistic scenario where multiple teams with three losses make the College Football Playoff in 2026 -- a year before the 24-team model goes into effect next season.
In the SEC, Alabama, LSU, Ole Miss, Tennessee and Florida all have two losses heading into November. Georgia and Kentucky are the conference's only one-loss teams.
Smith explained:
"With many of the teams inside the US LBM Coaches Poll scheduled to face each other in the next five weeks, it's mathematically hard to arrive at a scenario where there wont be a three-loss teams in the field. Here's some of that math. The Big Ten looks to get three teams at best. The Big 12 will be fortunate to get two. The ACC likely only get multiple teams without a Miami loss in the conference title game. There will be one Group of Six team. And probably Notre Dame. That's a total of eight.
"That leaves four teams for the SEC. But which ones? Only Georgia and Kentucky have one overall loss. The Bulldogs still have to face two-loss teams Florida, Missouri and Mississippi. The Wildcats will play two-loss Tennessee and also Florida and Missouri. LSU and Alabama meet (on Nov. 7). The Tigers also face Texas and Tennessee. Texas also plays Missouri. The Crimson Tide and Mississippi are the only two-loss team that faces just one playoff contender down the stretch."
Alabama football has big rise in ESPN's Week 9 CFB power rankings
— Roll Tide Wire (@RollTideWire) October 27, 2026
📸 Gary Cosby Jr., USA TODAY Network via Reuters Co https://t.co/RArbwgmEyj pic.twitter.com/5P2a3xeDNs
Alabama football schedule 2026
The 10th-ranked Crimson Tide will face No. 13 LSU (6-2, 3-2) at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge on Nov. 7. Kickoff for Alabama-LSU is 2:30 p.m. CT. The game will be televised on ABC.
All times Central.
- Sept. 5: vs. East Carolina Pirates (W, 48-10)
- Sept. 12: at Kentucky Wildcats (W, 45-17)
- Sept. 19: vs. Florida State Seminoles (W, 50-36)
- Sept. 26: vs. South Carolina Gamecocks (W, 49-18)
- Oct. 3: at Mississippi State Bulldogs (W, 56-23)
- Oct. 10: vs. Georgia Bulldogs (L, 20-17)
- Oct. 17: at Tennessee Volunteers (L, 26-10)
- Oct. 24: vs. Texas A&M Aggies (W, 31-20)
- Nov. 7: at LSU Tigers, 2:30 p.m., ABC
- Nov. 14: at Vanderbilt Commodores, TBA
- Nov. 21: vs. Chattanooga Mocs, 1 p.m., SEC Network+
- Nov. 28: vs. Auburn Tigers, TBA
Record: 6-2 overall, 4-2 SEC.
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This article originally appeared on Roll Tide Wire: USA TODAY Sports offers bold prediction for Alabama football, CFP race
