Browsing: Haters

Over the course of the last decade or so, stories like this have been about Alabama time and time again.

The flow of this story—the rebirth of the most successful football programs in recent memory following a lackluster result earlier in the year—goes something like this.

Alabama comes into a season with enormous expectations, as it did in 2025.

Alabama loses a game that it likely should have, which it certainly did against Florida State in the team’s opener, a result that suddenly feels like a distant dream.

Then, to tie it altogether, Alabama rallies with an emphatic triumph over a talented team, showing it is still very much alive and present.

We overreact. We recoil the other way. And football life goes on.Â

On Saturday night, playing on the road against unbeaten Georgia, a program it has an abundance of meaningful history against, the Crimson Tide delivered this 24-21 conquest and so much more.

This is the second overreaction, although it should serve as something more than that.

A month ago, we spent a full week dissecting the buyout of Kalen DeBoer. We wondered out loud if Nick Saban would come out of retirement to help his former program. We broke down how the Crimson Tide would afford this buyout—shoutout to monthly installments across many years— and if the program could move on from him as soon as a loss to Georgia, which seemed almost assumed at the time.

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This was the conversation. After the Seminoles dismantled Alabama in the opener, we questioned the coach. We questioned the talent. We questioned the quarterback. We questioned the direction of a team still adjusting to life after Nick Saban.

In fact, forget questioning. We buried this team.

We overreacted, as we often do, taking one outcome to the extreme. We decided then and there that this team was bad, and we did so without much thought.

A month later, Alabama is suddenly a threat to win every game it plays. Its quarterback, Ty Simpson, is now the second choice on the Heisman odds board. Three touchdowns against a top five team on the road will do that.

The weapons are healthy and robust. And the defense, which was the story in Week 1, appears to have turned a corner. All the negatives and concerns we had when the month began have largely been addressed as September ends.

We owe this team an apology, although we’ll never do that. We hate admitting when we’re wrong, and we certainly hate admitting when we’re wrong when it involves a program like this one—especially this specific one.

To be clear, that doesn’t mean all is perfect and the path is clear. Let’s address this very notion before things spiral too far out of control in the other direction.

Next week, the Crimson Tide welcomes Vanderbilt to town. Last year, the Commodores upended Alabama in one of the season’s most meaningful results. The following week, they head to Missouri to take on a feisty, unbeaten team.

There are still home games against Tennessee, LSU and Oklahoma. There are still road trips to South Carolina and Auburn.

This is one of the most difficult schedules in the country, and the likelihood of another loss, given how much talent they’ll encounter, is likely. Such is life in the SEC in 2025, which has more top-to-bottom depth than any conference in America.

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If nothing else, however, the result against Georgia was a reminder of sorts that could provide a handful of lessons.

A team’s season will never be defined in Week 1, no matter how big those moments feel at the time. For as tempting as it might feel to draw dramatic conclusions based on the outcome of 60 minutes, sometimes those emotions and reactions should be tempered.

Nothing about Alabama is tempered, nor will it be for the foreseeable future, whether the team is being coached by Saban or DeBoer. This program is a product of its own success, which is why these emotional seesaws swing so freely.

For at least one night and one week, however, Alabama is right where it needs to be. It has the right coach and the right quarterback, and it has all the ingredients a program needs to win big in the SEC and beyond.

Perhaps that will change. In fact, it could as soon as next week. If it does, the masses will flock to scream its demise from the rooftop. Then, when things are right again, the cycle will continue.

For at least right now, on the heels of a season-saving performance and a brilliant football game, those can wait.

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