There is a month to go before the curtain opens on the 2025 Alabama Crimson Tide. Much will be learned during Alabama Football Fall Camp. More will be learned on the Doak-Campbell Stadium field. The four games in the late September matchup in Athens will be akin to a mid-term test. Whatever the Crimson Tide's grade on that day, Alabama will still be a work in progress.
There are good reasons to believe the work in progress can result in acing the final.
The 2025 Alabama Crimson Tide has the coaching and roster ingredients to become a legitimate National Championship contender. As with every college football team, there are weaknesses. It is possible that by midseason, those weaknesses will have become just areas of less strength.
Alabama football fans understand the 2025 schedule is a challenge. ESPN ranks it as only the 10th toughest in the SEC, but that also makes it the 10th toughest in the FBS. At FSU early, plus away contests against Georgia, Missouri, South Carolina, and Auburn could challenge any SEC team not playing its best.
Chatter among Alabama Crimson Tide fans provides many 10-2 or 11-1 regular season predictions. Three words define why the optimism is justified. They are continuity, cohesion, and leadership. After last season's disappointing finish, wolves in the form of agents and go-betweens circled the Alabama program. Their pitch was often that the Alabama Football program had begun a cycle of decay; Alabama players should jump to more opportunities and make more money in the process.
Alabama Football flourishing, not decaying
Largely throughout the offseason, and totally in the spring portal period, the Alabama roster held firm. Returning player leadership from last season clearly decided that Kalen DeBoer and his staff could lead them back to greatness. The result appears to be a special buy-in throughout the roster. In the era of rapidly revolving doors, a critical mass has been reached in the 2025 roster. The Alabama Crimson Tide is possibly, maybe even probably, a team on a mission, built on a foundation not of talk and hopes, but on collective determination.
It is conceivable that in 12 regular-season games and however many more follow, Alabama will be the mentally toughest team on the field. If so, Kalen DeBoer and his staff will have masterfully executed one of the most difficult transitions in the history of college football.