The SEC Network's Dari Nowkhah takes some heat for frequently being wrong. Maybe he is an easy target, while other 'often wrong' and more highly paid of Nowkhah's contemporaries, such as Stephen A. Smith, Paul Finebaum, and Pat McAfee, get away with nonsense.
Alabama football fans have a new reason to challenge Nowkhah. This week, he predicted that Alabama could finish the SEC regular season as low as ninth. He also said the Crimson Tide could finish as high as second.
Nowkhah added, "I don't have a feel for them... we've always known exactly what they are and I don't feel that this year." Many fans don't know either. Even real experts like Josh Pate and Phil Steele are unsure what Alabama will become in the 2026 season. Pate and Steele have suggested the Crimson Tide might be underrated. The ultimate expert on Alabama Crimson Tide football is Nick Saban. Even Saban does not know what to expect.
During SEC Media Days, Saban praised the work Kalen DeBoer has done to build the current Alabama football culture. Saban also suggested that the Crimson Tide being somewhat "under the radar" could be a benefit for DeBoer. The GOAT added a caveat: "... you never know how 50 new players are going to respond..."
Alabama Football Predictions
During my July exercise of predicting the outcome of every Alabama regular season game, I projected the Crimson Tide to go 10-2 during the regular season. One loss was to the Georgia Bulldogs. The other loss was a home game misstep against a projected underdog team. My broader conclusion is that I can envision the Crimson Tide eclipsing predictions to finish the regular season at 11-1. In the opposite direction, which I believe is less likely, I can see Alabama scratching and clawing to an 8-4 regular-season finish.
An 8-4 finish might be close to ninth in the SEC, which would make the low side of Nowkhah's prediction a prescient one.
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