Alabama Football: Toughest Regular Season Games of 2022

Alabama football is gearing up for its 2022 revenge tour, and it will have plenty of obstacles to overcome along the way. Few Alabama football fans would disagree that this is a championship-or-bust season, but national championships don’t come easy.

The Crimson Tide’s closest competition in the current landscape of college football is probably the defending national champion Georgia Bulldogs. If Alabama gets a chance to dethrone the Bulldogs in 2022, however, it will not come until the postseason.

Alabama football’s regular season schedule is not overly daunting on paper. Upon closer inspection, it features several tough opponents with high ceilings, particularly on the offensive side of the ball.

Throughout this week, I will reveal what I believe to be Alabama football’s four toughest regular season games this season. Before we dive into those opponents, there are a trio of SEC rivals that are worthy of mention.

Alabama Football: The Rivals

While most of Alabama’s conference rivals have been down in recent years, they remain important games on the schedule.

The Iron Bowl can never be overlooked. Just last year, an overmatched Auburn team took the Crimson Tide to the wire in an instant classic. But few pundits expect Auburn to do anything of note in Bryan Harsin’s second season.

The Tigers will likely be at an even greater disadvantage against the Tide in 2022. Additionally, they have to come to Bryant-Denny Stadium this season, where they have had little success in the Nick Saban era. Regardless, the Iron Bowl should always be marked on every Alabama fan’s calendar.

Josh Heupel made some good progress in year one of his attempt to return Tennessee to prominence. The Volunteers finished only 7-6, but boasted one of the best offenses in the country and will return a lot of that production in 2022. The Crimson Tide will have to travel to Knoxville for the Third Saturday in October.

LSU has probably been Alabama’s fiercest SEC rival if you look at the entirety of Nick Saban’s tenure. Although the Tigers have rarely gotten the better of the Tide, the majority of the matchups have been physical, close, and highly anticipated.

The rivalry has lost some meaning with LSU taking a major step back in the past couple of years, but new coach Brian Kelly hopes to restore the program to an elite tier.

A pretty bad LSU team played Alabama very close in Bryant-Denny last year, so it should be interesting when the Tide return to Baton Rouge in 2022.