The Alabama Crimson Tide are set to meet no. 14 LSU Tigers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on Saturday night for an SEC showdown with major playoff implications, especially now that Alabama has been ranked no. 11 in this year's College Football Playoff Rankings and needs a win to hold their playoff spot. Both teams are currently 6-2 after taking a bye last week. The Alabama vs. LSU game begins at 7:30 p.m. ET and will air on ABC and ESPN+, but the festivities will last all day because Tiger Stadium will be the site of this week's ESPN College Gameday broadcast which begins at 9 a.m. ET. Here's how to watch Alabama vs. LSU this Saturday and keep up with live game-day updates here.
Late-Season Film Study Helps Players Prepare for LSU
For Alabama players, the presence of so much film can be helpful when preparing for games.
“You can go back and watch multiple games,” defensive lineman Jah-Marien Latham said Tuesday. “You can see how they play against different schemes. This part of the year, it’s helpful knowing what teams like to do and what we can do to stop them from doing what they like to do.”
Of course, that’s also true for teams like LSU, set to face the Crimson Tide on Saturday. UA coaches downplayed how the presence of so much film can impact game prep as the season gets later.
According to defensive backs coach Maurice Linguist, this is the time of year that presents more “copycat football.” If something hurt Alabama in the season opener against Western Kentucky, or its first Power 4 matchup at Wisconsin, it might show up again late in the season.
“You also have a story of yourself out there,” Linguist said Wednesday. “Really what comes alive in November, December and January football are the details. There’s a lot of identity of, like, you’re not gonna implement a new scheme necessarily this time of year. You’re trying to do what you do and do it better and apply what we do well to someone else’s scheme.”
Alabama Can't Afford Another Loss
The Crimson Tide can’t afford to lose another game this regular season. UA was ranked No. 11 in the first College Football Playoff top 25 of the 2024 campaign, and a third defeat would likely eliminate it from contending for the 12-team field.
According to defensive line coach Freddie Roach, the strategy for late-season games doesn’t change.
“You have more information, but the main thing is the main thing,” Roach said. “What can you do to put guys in the best position to have success? Again, you have six, seven, eight games at this point in time in the season and you see more things. Now, there’s stuff teams have done in the front end of the year they’re not doing so much now. That’s part of preparation and getting guys where they can play.”
Wide receivers coach JaMarcus Shephard said the staff will look back at every available piece of LSU film. He also pointed out, that strategy isn’t unique to games played late in the season.
There’s plenty of ways to scout a team, even early on.
“We’re always going to do that,” Shephard said. “I think with the invention of PFF (Pro Football Focus), you have a lot at your disposal to be able to really do a good job of finding the information that you really need, to make sure that you’re prepared on game day. So no, it hasn’t really changed much at all.”
Topline Numbers Show Consistency, But Concerns Remain
The basic trends look pretty steady so far, given the relative tumult this season.
It’s a midseason bye week, so I’m not doing a deep dive or a game review today, but I figured I’d plot out the team’s top-line numbers so far to give some zoomed-out perspective on the Tide in 2024. Given how angsty folks are around here about the 2 losses we’ve accrued, the top-line numbers actually do look steady and respectable overall.
Here’s how we’ve done according to efficiency — Success Rate (SR) — and explosiveness — Explosiveness Rate (XR) — through the Mizzou game. The red lines are the Tide’s performance, and the dotted lines are those of opposing offenses (so, a proxy for the performance of Alabama’s defense).
A few things stand out immediately to me ... like the fact that Alabama’s offense has been the more efficient one in every game this season. And yet we managed to lose two of these!
One loss shows some telling signals in the data: Alabama’s explosiveness took a dip in mid October, tying in this metric with South Carolina and losing on explosiveness to Tennessee in the 3rd Saturday. Given how close the XR’s and SR’s were in both, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the SCar game was very close, and that the Tennessee game was a close loss.
That said — and you’ve heard this from me this season already — the Vanderbilt loss was bizarre. Yes, it’s frustrating to see the Tide give up 3rd downs, pick sixes, and odd plays otherwise. But, honestly that Vandy loss was truly incredibly low likelihood and very odd. Heck, that game is literally the high water mark for the 2024 Tide offense’s efficiency (57% SR) so far, and some of the largest gaps between Alabama and it’s opponent in both measures. It’s fair to say that a team with Alabama’s talent shouldn’t have let this be a close game in the first place; but it’s also fair to say that given the team’s down-by-down performance in this game, it should’ve been a win anyway. It’s weird. It’s frustrating.
I thought I’d pull the same numbers for the 2023 team — Milroe’s first Alabama offense, Saban’s last Alabama team — for reference here.
Topline numbers do kinda average out the same as what we’re seeing in 2024 so far: if we see 42% SR as league average, then actually this 2023 team actualy hovered below that more often, especially at this point in the season. It wasn’t until November that this Tide offense got to the good parts of “the Milroe show”: he and the offense were great in November and did just enough in the last 2 games to get into the playoff.
The defense started well last year and really blanketed some teams. You can see that 30% SR mark as low and likely a loss for opponents, and Alabama’s defense kept opponents around or below that number a lot (even in wacky games like that Arkansas comeback).
But the defense wasn’t as steady across games last year, at least on SR. In fact, Alabama’s opponents beat us on efficiency three times in the season (Texas loss, TAMU win, Georgia win, Michigan loss, nearly Tennessee and LSU too), and matched us on XR in even more games (USF, Ole Miss, LSU, Auburn, UGA, Michigan). We won some close games last year ... rather than the less fortunate record we’ve produced in close games this year.
The more I look at it, the more I think ... that 2023 team could have some great games, but we were pretty lucky to rally late in the season, get a few coin flip wins, and get to the Rose Bowl (and nearly the tidle game) in Saban’s final season.
And, look, these numbers don’t predict or inform everything, but they do have me feeling fair-to-good about DeBoer’s first Alabama team so far. The next few weeks will be very critical for seeing that trajectory through (or not); and in the longer term, we’ll learn if this is more about “Saban’s talent left on hand” vs. “DeBoer’s philosophy already sticking and working.”
SEC Championship Scenarios: Alabama's Path Is Narrow
While Bama-LSU go head to head, the latest road map to the SEC Championship Game is here. Following Ole Miss' win over Georgia, who has the easiest road?
The SEC Championship Game is fast approaching now that we’re in the month of November. We started Week 11 with five one-loss teams, but now the road map is a bit trickier for teams in contention.
If it’s not win-out, then how can each team win the SEC? Let’s map it out.
The Vegas lines will be out soon enough, but before we get their latest SEC Championship Odds after Week 11, let’s look at the road map for each team and use the CFN Football Playoff Meter as a guide to see who is most likely to make (and win) the title game.
We locked in the results from the noon and 3:30 games in the SEC and simulated the rest of the SEC season over 10,00 times. Here’s how each team fared and an explanation of how we got there further down.
These numbers above are how many times each team made the SEC Championship Game, and subsequently won the SEC in the process. Any team not listed above never made it to the SEC Championship Game.
The current standings are below, with the results of the Tennessee-Mississippi State and LSU-Alabama games not complete. Scroll just below those to find the road maps for every team in the hunt. Here’s how the table sits right now in the SEC.
The Texas Longhorns had a 25.14% SEC Championship Game winning probability before dismantling the Florida Gators on Saturday, and before Georgia lost to Ole Miss. That chance to win the SEC has now skyrocketed to 46.32%, by far the favorite to win the SEC this season.
MORE: Simulate the College Football Season with CFN’s College Football Playoff Predictor
The CFN FPM makes the Longhorns a heavy favorite in each game, even on the road in College Station, in what appears to be an SEC eliminator
So, if you’ve read this far, you’re a fan of the Ole Miss Rebels or you’re a fan of chaos. The Rebels have an ugly loss to Kentucky in SEC play this season and then a road loss to LSU. All that means is that they had to have some luck to get into the SEC Championship Game.
As we said during the week, Ole Miss obviously has to win out. With their win against Georgia, they now own the head-to-head over a two-loss Bulldogs team. Now, they need Georgia to defeat Tennessee and wait for A&M and Texas to push one of those teams to two losses in the conference.
Then, and only then, would we have a multitude of two-loss conference teams and then, and only then, would we be in a position to talk about Ole Miss’ SEC Championship berth. The only factor that drives a stake through their chances is that LSU loss a handful of weeks ago.
Crazier things have happened, but Ole Miss has to take that hate they had for Georgia in Week 11 and parlay that over to some love in Week 12, rooting on the Bulldogs to defeat Tennessee to continue their improbable journey.
Though the Tennessee road map isn’t as clean and clear, a lone loss to Arkansas doesn’t hurt them if they can get over the proverbial Georgia hump. A win against Georgia and holding off a pesky Vanderbilt team guarantees them a spot in the SEC Championship Game.
However, unlike the teams above them here, the Vols have the hardest shot due to having to travel to Athens. Those numbers got a bit easier, though, following Georgia’s loss to Ole Miss. But that doesn’t mean Georgia is any less likely to be a fired-up unit against the Vols in Week 12.
The LSU Tigers can throw a large wrench into the plans of the SEC Championship picture by winning out. They’ll knock out Alabama in the process and would end the year with a 10-2 record and one conference loss to Texas A&M.
Georgia’s loss throws a bit of a wrench in their own plans, but if the Bulldogs knock off Tennessee in Week 12, and LSU wins against Alabama, then the Tigers are likely opposite the winner of the Texas-Texas A&M game as the second team with just one conference loss.
That’s why the CFN FPM is still quite low on LSU’s chances at this point, mainly because of the unknown and the fact that they have to get by Alabama still.
For the Texas A&M Aggies, the road map is just as clear as it is for Texas: win out and you’re in. That is because they’d finish with a single loss and would knock out Texas in the final game of the year. With Georgia out of the way, the one-loss teams in the conference are down to just four, with LSU still to play Alabama.
However, it’s not that simple if the Aggies win all the way to Texas and lose to the Longhorns, which our CFN FPM is projecting. That’s because of the secondary tiebreaker between a potential two-loss Georgia, and in this scenario, a two-loss A&M.
A&M and Georgia have both defeated Florida (by 13 and 14 points, respectively, and Mississippi State (by 10 points apiece), and both play Auburn and Texas as their common SEC opponents. If the Aggies were to lose to Texas, they’d be 3-1 (assuming they defeat Auburn) against those three teams, whereas Georgia sits at 4-0 against those teams.
That would put Georgia in the title game over a two-loss Aggies, so they truly are in a ‘win-to-get-in’ mode this season.
CFN’s FPM gives them a chance to do just that, but that game against Texas is bringing them down.
For the Bulldogs, it got much murkier following their loss to Ole Miss in Week 11. After sporting a 25.14% chance to win the SEC Championship, their loss to the Rebels pushes their chances down to a measly 5.40%.
That’s because they’ll need some serious help to get there. As mentioned above, however, they do own the proverbial two-loss tiebreaker between A&M by virtue of beating Texas earlier in the year, but with the way their offense played against Ole Miss, knocking off Tennessee in Week 12 isn’t as much of a given as it was last week.
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Combine that with the fact that they’d need LSU to lose a game as well, and you’ve got yourself a long shot that no one would actually want to face in the SEC Championship.
The CFN FPM took all that into consideration and churned out their new probability as a stark difference in last week’s number.
For the Tide, they have to win out and hope that Georgia beats Tennessee and maybe, just maybe get some luck by virtue of a slip-up by Texas, Texas A&M, or Ole Miss to make their tiebreaker scenarios a bit easier. A lot remaining to be seen, and we’ll know more if they can knock off LSU in Week 11.
It’s possible but highly improbable. Alabama is alive but hanging on by a thread.
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