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Alabama brings back thirty-five percent of its offense, 119th in the country, and still has not named a quarterback. The books will pay you plus money to doubt nine wins. I am taking it.
Key Storylines
- The offense was not trimmed, it was emptied. Alabama brings back 35 percent of its offensive production, 119th out of 138 teams. Ty Simpson went 13th overall to the Rams. Six offensive linemen entered the portal, among them Wilkin Formby, Olaus Alinen and Micah DeBose, and the receiving room left with them: Germie Bernard, Isaiah Horton, Cole Adams, Jalen Hale and Jaylen Mbakwe are all gone.
- Nobody knows who is playing quarterback. Austin Mack and Keelon Russell are still competing, and after the first fall scrimmage Kalen DeBoer said he did not feel closer to a decision. This will be the second straight season Alabama opens with a new starter, and the first one had an experienced line in front of him.
- The reinforcements are freshmen, and good ones. DeBoer signed a top-ten class with five-star receiver Cederian Morgan, an in-state kid from Alexander City walking into an empty receiver room, and five-star back EJ Crowell, who reclassified to get to Tuscaloosa a year early and is already being asked to fix the run game. Twenty true freshmen played double-digit games in DeBoer’s first two seasons, so these two will play. Freshmen playing a lot is also what a 119th-ranked returning offense looks like from the inside.
- One starter returns on the offensive line. Sophomore Michael Carroll, six starts last year, is the lone holdover. Kadyn Proctor, Kam Dewberry, Parker Brailsford, Geno VanDeMark and Jaeden Roberts went to the NFL on top of the six who hit the portal. DeBoer hired Adrian Klemm from Oregon by way of the NFL to rebuild it and brought in eleven new linemen, including Michigan transfers Ty Haywood and Kaden Strayhorn and center Racin Delgatty. A first-year quarterback behind four new starters is the version of this bet I am happiest with.
- The defense is the reason this is not a bigger play. SP+ projects it sixth in the country. That unit returns 61 percent, 32nd nationally, with Bray Hubbard, Keon Sabb and Zabien Brown back in the secondary and Devan Thompkins arriving from USC. Kane Wommack is in his third year running it and Ryan Grubb is in his second on offense, so the staff is stable even though the roster is not.
- Both specialists came through the portal. Kicker Lorcan Quinn arrives from Marshall, where he went 21 of 26 with four of six from 50-plus and made first-team All-Sun Belt, and punter Adam Watford comes from North Alabama after averaging 46.5 yards with an FCS-record seventeen punts of 50 or more. The Tide fixed the kicking game on purpose. A team that needs to sweep eight winnable games will need a few of them kicked home.
- The schedule leaves no room to absorb any of that. Four opponents rate inside the SP+ top fourteen: Georgia fourth, Texas A&M ninth, LSU tenth and Tennessee fourteenth. Two of those are in Tuscaloosa and two are on the road.
Win Total Analysis
The number is 8.5, with the Under at +110 and the Over at -130.
Final preseason SP+, the ESPN power rating this series leans on, has Alabama 13th overall at 17.6. That is a good team, and it is worth saying plainly before the rest of this, because nothing here argues Alabama is bad.
It also projects 7.8 wins from this schedule. Adjusted for the rating’s market bias, that is about 7.95 against a line of 8.5, half a win under the number, on the side that pays plus money. That combination is why this is a standard play.
Nine wins is a specific and demanding thing. Sort the twelve games into three piles. East Carolina and Chattanooga are two you can bank. Florida State, a trip to Kentucky, South Carolina, a trip to Mississippi State, a trip to Vanderbilt and the Auburn rivalry are six more that Alabama should win. Georgia, Texas A&M, LSU and Tennessee are the four that a top-fourteen SP+ opponent makes genuinely hard.
Two plus six is eight. The Over needs Alabama to sweep every single one of those eight and then beat one of the four. The Under needs Alabama to lose four of twelve. Drop one of the eight and it needs two of the four instead.
Now put a first-year starting quarterback behind a rebuilt line into that sentence. Sweeping eight games that include Florida State, a November trip to Vanderbilt and the Iron Bowl is the part people skip past, and it is the part the Over actually rests on.
Alabama went 10-2 in the regular season a year ago and that is the honest counterargument. That team had Simpson, Bernard, Horton and an offensive line that is now spread across six other rosters.
Take the Under at +110.
SEC Picture
SP+ puts six SEC teams above Alabama before a game is played: Georgia fourth, Texas sixth, Texas A&M ninth, LSU tenth and Oklahoma eleventh, with the Tide thirteenth. That is the league it has to climb through, and it plays three of those six.
BetMGM has Alabama at +155 to reach the playoff and -185 to miss it. The market is already saying this is not a bracket team. It just has not extended the same doubt to the win total, which is where I think the value sits.
Last season ended with a 7-28 loss to Georgia in the SEC Championship Game, a first-round playoff win at Oklahoma, and then a 3-38 defeat to Indiana in the Rose Bowl. The Tide made the field. They did not look like they belonged in the last game they played.
Best Futures Bets
- Under 8.5 wins (+110): The play, and the rare one where the price, the roster and the projection all agree. You are getting plus money on a team that returns the 119th-ranked offense in the country and has not settled its quarterback.
- To miss the playoff (-185): The same read, priced worse. It is consistent with everything above, and I would rather take +110 for a similar opinion than lay nearly two to one for it.
- To make the playoff (+155): Pass. It is not an unreasonable number for a program with this recruiting base, but it needs the quarterback question to resolve well and at least two wins from the Georgia, Texas A&M, LSU and Tennessee group.
Schedule Landmines
Weeks 1-4: East Carolina opens it at Bryant-Denny on September 5, then a trip to Kentucky, then Florida State visits on September 19 and South Carolina a week later. A new quarterback gets two weeks before a real opponent shows up. The Over needs all four of these.
Weeks 5-7: The stretch that decides it. Starkville on October 3, then Georgia comes to Tuscaloosa on October 10, then Alabama goes to Knoxville on October 17. Georgia is the fourth-rated team in the country and beat the Tide by three touchdowns in December. Neyland in the third week of October is not where a rebuilt offense wants to be.
Weeks 8-10: Texas A&M on October 24, the bye on Halloween, then a trip to LSU on November 7. Two more top-ten SP+ opponents inside three weeks. If Alabama has dropped two of the previous three, the Under is close to home by Thanksgiving.
Weeks 11-13: A trip to Vanderbilt on November 14, Chattanooga, then the Iron Bowl to close on November 28. Chattanooga is free. The other two are not, and a Vanderbilt team that has spent three years beating people it is not supposed to beat is the sort of game that turns a nine-win season into an eight-win one.
Bottom Line
The quarterback is undecided, the offensive line is rebuilt, the receivers are gone and the returning offense ranks 119th. The defense is real and the schedule still asks for a clean sweep of eight games plus an upset, with the projection sitting under the number. Take the Under at plus money.
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