Ranking Alabama Football's remaining nine regular season opponents

Alabama Football has accomplished its first goal of the 2024 season by going 3-0 before their first bye week. The Crimson Tide demolished Wisconsin on the road 42-10 on Saturday, and have now outscored its opposition 147-26 through the season's first three weeks.

The SEC schedule starts in earnest following the bye week as the Georgia Bulldogs come to Tuscaloosa to face Alabama on September 28th in one of the marquee matchups of the entire college football season.

While the 3-0 start to the Kalen DeBoer era has Alabama fans excited, the schedule gets tougher from here with only one cupcake left on the schedule. Is Georgia the toughest game left on Alabama's schedule, or will road games in Knoxville, Norman, and Baton Rouge prove to be more difficult hurdles as the Crimson Tide attempts to get back to the College Football Playoff?

9. Mercer

Not much needs to be said here. This is the annual November cupcake that usually takes place right before the Iron Bowl, but it's a week earlier this year as Alabama travels to Norman before facing Auburn.

The Bears are 3-0 to start the season, but the contest in Tuscaloosa is the only FBS game on their schedule. Don't expect much anxiety with this one.

8. Vanderbilt

Alabama takes a road trip to Nashville to take on Vanderbilt in what could be a classic let-down game, especially if the Crimson Tide is able to beat the Bulldogs in Tuscaloosa.

The Commodores were one of the early darlings of the 2024 season led by New Mexico State transfer Diego Pavia. Vanderbilt beat Virginia Tech, a popular ACC darkhorse, in week one to deliver the biggest win of Clark Lea's coaching tenure.

Unfortunately for the 'Dores, its bowl hopes took a serious hit with a road loss to Georgia State. If Vanderbilt was going to make a bowl game, it needed to win all four of its non-conference games. Now it will take at least three SEC wins for them to get to six, and one of those ain't happening when the Crimson Tide comes to Nashville.

7. Auburn

It speaks to the difficulty of Alabama's remaining schedule that its chief rival ranks seventh out of nine in terms of toughest games remaining. That's not to say this game will be easy because it probably won't be, though Alabama has won the last four Iron Bowls, and is on a six-game winning streak in Tuscaloosa in the series.

Auburn is 2-1 through three games and fans on the Plains are settling into the reality that there might not be as much improvement in year two under Hugh Freeze as they hoped. The Tigers put together a disastorous week two performance at home against Cal, falling 21-14 to the Golden Bears. The loss prompted the benching of senior QB Payton Thorne.

Redshirt freshman Hank Brown played well in his first start, a 45-19 win over New Mexico, but the test of whether or not Thorne was the biggest issue plaguing Auburn remains to be seen as the schedule gets more difficult. Auburn takes on Arkansas at home this week before welcoming in Oklahoma to Jordan-Hare the following week.

The loss to Cal has Auburn looking more like a six-or-seven win team than the eight-or-nine team fans hoped for in the preseason.

6. South Carolina

This will be the first time in 15-years that South Carolina has traveled to Bryant-Denny Stadium. That night in 2009 saw Mark Ingram, now happily gumping it up on Big Noon Kickoff, rush for over 200-yards and state his Heisman Trophy case.

The Gamecocks are battle tested already having played two SEC games. They throttled Kentucky 31-6 in Lexington, and then lost a heartbreaker to LSU at home last week.

There's plenty of questions at QB, but South Carolina has a fearsome defensive line led by freshman Dylan Stewart who looks like he should be playing on Sundays instead of Saturdays already.

5. Missouri

I'm a bit unconvinced that Missouri is a legitimate SEC contender. I think it's more likely that they are at the top of the second tier of SEC teams, behind Alabama, Georgia, Texas, and Ole Miss. That's not to say this won't be a difficult game because it will. Brady Cook is a good enough QB to make a young secondary pay for mistakes, and Luther Burden may be the best WR in the nation.

Missouri has only traveled to Tuscaloosa one time in program history, which was back in 2018 when Alabama rolled to a 39-10 win. This will be the first meeting between the two teams at all since the 2020 season opener.

This is another game that could be a trap for the Crimson Tide as Missouri comes to Tuscaloosa a week after Alabama's trip to Knoxville for the Third Saturday in October and a week before what will be a much-needed bye week.

4. Oklahoma

Unsurprisingly, three of the four toughest games that remain on the Crimson Tide's schedule are road games. The Oklahoma game comes at a difficult time in late November, just a week before the Iron Bowl.

Alabama last traveled to Norman to play the Sooners back in 2002 when Dennis Franchione was roaming the Tide sideline.

Little is know about the quality of this Sooners team. We'll get a better idea of who they are this weekend when Tennessee comes to town. Oklahoma is 3-0, but they've looked shaky in non-con wins over Houston and Tulane.

3. LSU

Alabama lost by a single point in overtime the last time they traveled to Baton Rouge, which snapped a five-game winning streak for the Crimson Tide in Death Valley.

The Tigers could easily be 1-2, but they escaped Columbia with a three-point win at South Carolina. Don't look now, but Brian Kelly's team has a favorable schedule the rest of the way with only three road games left against Arkansas, Texas A&M, and Florida. Both Alabama and Ole Miss travel to Baton Rouge. They will be a factor in the SEC race.

This is another team with a good QB in Garrett Nussmeir that will make life difficult for the young Tide secondary, and it could ultimately be a shootout. Alabama gets its customary bye week before battling LSU, but this will be a fight as it always is down there.

2. Georgia

Some might be surprised to see the Bulldogs here considering this is the game that has been circled by everyone as perhaps the biggest game of the entire season across college football. But ESPN's FPI would agree that Alabama's chances of beating Georgia at home are higher than their chances of winning on the road for the toughest game left on the schedule.

Alabama and Georgia has become a rivalry in recent years as the programs have been the two top dogs in the SEC, and with Nick Saban's top protegee leading the team in Athens. The rivalry has been pretty one-sided, though, with the Crimson Tide holding a 5-1 record against Georgia during the Kirby Smart era.

Alabama beat Georgia in last season's SEC Championship game, ending the Bulldogs' 29-game winning streak and their hopes of winning a third straight national title.

Revenge will undoubtedly be on Georgia's mind, but DeBoer also knows how important this game is to garner an early signature win in just his fourth game as the head coach.

1. Tennessee

The toughest game left on the Tide's schedule comes in the form of one of the best rivalries in the history of the SEC. People forgot about this rivalry because of how singularly dominant Alabama was on the Third Saturday in October during Nick Saban's tenure.

Alabama ran off 15 straight wins over Tennessee from 2007-2021, but the last time Alabama went to Knoxville, the Vols knocked them off. Josh Heupel has things cooking for Tennessee, and with young phenom QB Nico Iamaleava, they look like a legitimate national contender.

Whether Tennesse is a legitimate contender or a bye-product of an easy schedule remains to be seen, but we'll have an answer for that before Alabama heads to Neyland Stadium. The Vols go to Oklahoma this week, and another blowout win will make it impossible to ignore Tennessee as a threat to win the whole thing.