ESPN sports betting analyst Pamela Maldonado drew the ire of Alabama football fans before the Week 1 game against Florida State. She was one of the few in the national media who sounded the alarm of a potential Seminoles upset, something most Tide fans - and anyone outside of Tallahassee - took as ridiculous.
She was right.
Florida State upset Alabama in Week 1. But while Maldonado took that as confirmation of her preseason concerns about the Crimson Tide, Kalen DeBoer and his team simply went back to work and got better.
And since that loss, Alabama has reeled off six consecutive wins, including four in a row over ranked SEC opponents. Maldonado praised Alabama for the resiliency in her latest article, but couldn't help delivering a back-handed compliment by calling the Tide's competition "solid."
Apparently playing the toughest stretch in the country over the last month is "solid." Got it.
But overall, Maldonado is now buying Alabama as the SEC favorite. It makes sense. At 4-0 in league play, the Tide is very much in the driver's seat to get to Atlanta. But she still has major concerns over Alabama as a legitimate National Championship favorite.
"The Tide may have rebuilt themselves from that Week 1 loss, and they are absolutely a contender for the Playoff, but I am not ready to put them in the national title conversation," Maldonado writes. "The run defense and lack of dominance in the trenches are still concerns. A true national title contender controls the line of scrimmage against elite teams, and Alabama is not quite there."
Alabama still has work to do to contend for a National Championship
Maldonado isn't necessarily wrong about Alabama's current flaws, but she's making the same mistake she made in the preseason and after Week 1 by writing the Crimson Tide off entirely. Because this team is getting better every single week.
Ty Simpson certainly covers a lot of flaws, and if Alabama can get the ground game going, then the offense could take a step toward being completely unstoppable. That may never fully happen, though the emergence of redshirt freshman Daniel Hill over the last two weeks is a promising sign.
Alabama's defense has shown it can get stops in pivotal moments, though it's still too leaky against the run. The pass defense has been exceptional, though, holding Tennessee last week to just 170 non-garbage time passing yards.
Whether or not Alabama can win the National Championship or not this year remains to be seen. What has become obvious, however, is that you bet against this team at your own peril. DeBoer has figured out the right buttons to push, and the Crimson Tide is hungry and motivated to get back to the top of the mountain.