Alabama Football: Homecoming game fan info, prediction and more

Saturday will have an early start for Alabama Football, as well as Crimson Tide fans celebrating Homecoming in Tuscaloosa. Gates to Bryant-Denny will open at 9:00 AM CST, the same time as Alabama’s Walk of Champions. The Elephant Stomp is at 10:00 AM CST.

The game will start a couple of minutes past 11:00 AM CST. It will be broadcast by ESPN and will be available through multiple cable and streaming sources. The ESPN announcing crew is Dave Pasch, Dusty Dvoracek, and Tom Luginbill. Eli Gold, Tyler Watts, and Christian Miller will have the Crimson Tide Sports Network (CTSN) radio call. CTSN’s broadcast can be heard on Sirius/XM 109 or 190.

By Crimson Tide standards, Alabama Football has not achieved success this season. It still can, even without a chance to be undefeated. All week Nick Saban has been lecturing and preaching in a battle against complacency.

Saban said on the Pat McAfee Show that success can be an enemy to anyone. Alabama did succeed with a key road win last week and Saban knows the team could foolishly believe beating the four-loss Hogs will be easy. Scoffing against the large betting spread for the Arkansas game, Saban said he would not label the Crimson Tide as a two-point favorite.

Alabama Football Injuries and Game Prediction

Malachi Moore and James Burnip are still considered day-to-day. Moore did participate in practice, but it is not known how close he is to a full recovery. Saban said Thursday night that Will Reichard’s strategically executed punts were effective against Texas A&M.

According to FanDuel, Alabama is a 20.5-point favorite over the Razorbacks. Alabama is better than Arkansas, but given the dire situation the Hogs are in, somewhere closer to Saban’s two points makes more sense than 20-plus points.

The Hogs will battle hard to avoid a fifth consecutive loss. Despite Saban’s warnings, the Crimson Tide might be a bit flat. An Alabama win by single digits is my best guess, with the Tide scoring in the high 20s.

If the game is the blowout oddsmakers are predicting, it will signal the Crimson Tide’s ‘work-in-progress’ has made much progress.

Game Prediction: Alabama 27 – Arkansas 20

Note: Homecoming and game information provided by rolltide.com

There is another plausible scenario with Alabama’s run game working, and the Tide’s strong defense clamping down on the Arkansas offense, in which a 7-point win turns into a 17-point one.