After the Tide tumbled in Tallahassee, I vowed not to talk about Alabama Football and the Playoffs until after the Georgia game. With the Crimson Tide's open week, I am reneging somewhat, for this one post.
Alabama Football and the 2025-26 College Football Playoffs
What 12 teams will be in the next Playoff? No expert, no pundit, no fan, no coach, and no player knows. That doesn't stop continual chatter and predictions.
Many in the college football national media wrote off the Crimson Tide before the sun went down in northern Florida on Aug. 31. Mostly, it was to feed the widespread hate of everything to do with Alabama Football. That said, Alabama played so poorly that claims were useless.
Now at 2-1, not much has changed about Alabama's Playoff predictions. Ask Alabama football fans to list three media sources they least respect, and a guess is that three in the top five of any poll would be Joseph Goodman, Heather Dinich, and On3's Brett McMurphy. al.com has many great writers, but I don't read Goodman. I have no idea about his Playoff predictions. Dinich has five SEC teams making the Playoffs. Not included is the Alabama Crimson Tide. She has Georgia, LSU, Tennessee, Texas A&M, and Oklahoma. Based on message board opinions, it appears many Alabama fans choose to ignore McMurphy. So if you missed his latest Playoff and bowl predictions, he has the SEC with four Playoff teams: Georgia, LSU, Texas A&M, and Oklahoma.
McMurphy has Alabama playing in the Music City Bowl against Indiana.
Another projection provided by Shawn Hardie, writing for College Football News, might interest Alabama fans more. At least it will not incite anger. Hardie uses AP Polls as the basis for building a list of teams that "Won't Make the Playoffs." Each week, he lists a Top 25 of contenders and which teams he has moved to the 'won't make' it list.
Hardie's first ranking had the Crimson Tide at No. 21 in the 25 Playoff contenders. In his two rankings since, Alabama has moved to No. 19 and, now in Week 4, is at No. 14. The teams Hardie no longer considers as contenders are Boise State, Florida, and Kansas State. Currrently unranked, SMU, South Florida, South Carolina, and Clemson are on Hardie's watch list as possible future additions to his "won't make' list of teams.
A win over Georgia would make Alabama a major Playoff contender. A loss would harm Bama's playoff chances considerably.