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SEC Season Grades: Alabama Crimson Tide

Jan 13, 2025 | 2:06 PM

By Chris Marler

Season in a sentence

Alabama entered the post-Nick Saban era full of hope and anxiety. The season ended with nothing but disappointment—and anxiety.

Three Highs

  1. Beat Georgia—again

Georgia is now 1-9 against Alabama in the last 16 years, and if they somehow manage to lose to Kalen DeBoer in Athens next year, we might need to put Kirby’s face on those ASPCA commercials with that Sarah McLachlan song my Aunt Trudy loves so much. 

  1. Ranked No. 1 in the country—again

Alabama has been ranked No. 1 at some point in every season since the Bush administration (except 2023). 

  1. Beat Auburn for the fifth-straight year

That means for the fifth straight season, Auburn’s biggest win over Alabama was watching someone else do it.

 

Three Lows

  1. Lost to Vanderbilt for the first time in 40 years 

Alabama lost to Vanderbilt for the first time in 40 years, thanks to Johnny Manziel with a thyroid condition. 

  1. Lost to Oklahoma by three touchdowns 

Alabama was a 14-point favorite and lost to a team that threw for 68 yards thanks to Jalen Milroe apparently going color blind with three interceptions. 

  1. Failed to make the College Football Playoff 

Failing to make the College Football Playoff may not seem like a failure to some, but when you had over a 93% chance to make it after the Georgia win and over a 72% chance to make it after the LSU win, it is a catastrophic failure.

The Offense

Alabama finished third in the SEC in scoring offense at 33.8 points per game. However, they failed to finish in the top five in rushing, passing, and total offense. Considering the fact that DeBoer was an offensive minded coach and had the highest returning Heisman trophy vote getter in the country, that feels like a bit of a failure. 

The offense felt clunky all season. There were games when they refused to throw the ball enough, and there were games, like Tennessee, where the game plan was to throw it way too much. Jalen Milroe dropping back 49 times—a real stat from the Tennessee game—will never be a recipe for success. They also seemed to veer away from throwing downfield and taking deep shots, which was arguably his best attribute as a passer. Hell, it may have been his only attribute. 

During the LSU game, it was clear their game plan was to run Milroe and run him repeatedly. That was a good game plan. However, it was clear well before the LSU match-up that the run game was almost entirely focused on him running first. That’s why you saw six straight quarters of football in October without a back-to-back running play involving an actual running back. Yes, that is a real stat. This offense peaked in September, but unlike Nick Sheridan’s game plan against Georgia versus the rest of the season, we will return to that later. 

Offensive Grade – C+

The Defense 

The defense was great for most of the season, and you could make the case that besides the Vandy and Georgia game, they were dominant all year. Year one under Kane Wommack went much better than expected, in my opinion, especially considering how thin they were in the beginning. Alabama lost 12 players in the secondary from 2023 to 2024, either to the NFL Draft or through the transfer portal.

Despite being very thin and lacking consistent depth in all three defensive units, the defense played very well this season. They battled injuries and lost multiple starters throughout the season, including their best safety Keon Sabb, best pass rusher Que Robinson, and their veteran and emotional leader Deontae Lawson at linebacker. They finished the year with just 25 sacks, their worst total in a decade. Their average season sack total in the previous eight years was 42.5. They did finish top five in the country in turnovers with 28 averaging more than two per game. 

Wommack’s defense was an overall success in year one. The Tide finished top four in the SEC in scoring and passing defense. However, the run defense was a huge liability during the year and finished 11th in the SEC. That was especially the case in games like Vanderbilt, where the defense could not get off the field on third downs and was bludgeoned by the run game, allowing the Commodores to hold the ball for 42 minutes. See also: the Oklahoma game. 

Defensive Grade – B+

Overall Grade 

I don’t think going 9-4 in the first year of the post-Nick Saban era is a major disappointment—or at least it shouldn’t be. I said all offseason this was most likely a nine win season and asking for more of a first year coach who is replacing the G.O.A.T. is unreasonable, at best. That being said, I never thought the losses would come where they came this year. 

This Alabama team had everything in front of it, multiple times. They were given plenty of opportunities to make the college football playoff and every time they had that opportunity in front of them, they failed. They failed spectacularly, if we are being honest. Beating Georgia only to lose to Vanderbilt the next week felt like a fever dream and probably not a sign of things to come. I expected them to lose at Tennessee before the season, but they were given three turnovers in the first half and were unable to score a single point off them. 

Then came the coup de grâce, when they faced LSU in what was essentially a playoff elimination game and boat raced them 42-16. Two weeks later, they went to Norman against a 5-5 Oklahoma team and lost by three touchdowns to a team that had 68 yards passing. 

I don’t know what the hell happened in the locker room at halftime of that Georgia game, but the team that emerged from the tunnel onto Nick Saban field at Bryant Denny-Stadium Benjamin Buttoned themselves into solid football the rest of the season. 

Overall Season Grade – B-