Jumbo Package: Wounded Tide moves on to Texas A&M

Happy Monday, everyone. Alabama players are focused on getting back to work after a humbling loss in Knoxville.

“Got to get back up on your feet,” Alabama quarterback Keelon Russell said. “Nobody’s going to hold their head down. You hate to lose, especially this one. Big rivalry game. We hate to lose that. It is what it is. We’ve just got to keep pushing forward. There’s a lot of games left in the season. I 100% believe this team is going to go all the way. We’ve just got to put our head high and just keep going.”

Russell critiqued himself and the offense plenty postgame after the offense turned the ball over four times, gained only 201 yards and tallied only 10 points, which included a touchdown that happened in the first half after the Alabama defense picked off Tennessee.

The Crimson Tide struggled without starting center Racin Delgatty and star receiver Ryan Coleman-Williams, both out with injuries.

“I had a horrible game,” Russell said. “Just put it all on myself. Couldn’t even lead my guys down the field, past the 50. I had careless turnovers. The last one was just like what the hell is Keelon doing?”

If you care to revisit it, Landon Tengwall has some solid film breakdown for you per usual.

Moving on, Saturday will be a reunion of sorts for some former Alabama players.

The Aggies have plenty of former Alabama flavor.

Texas A&M’s roster includes offensive lineman Wilkin Formby, receiver Isaiah Horton and cornerback Dezz Ricks. The first two transferred to College Station ahead of the 2026 season. Ricks left after Nick Saban retired.

Meanwhile, the man running Texas A&M’s offense is Holmon Wiggins, the former Alabama receivers coach. Wiggins is in his first year calling plays for the Aggies after Collin Klein left to become the head coach of Kansas State.

This is what SBN’s Aggies site, Good Bull Hunting, wants to see from their team.

Defensive improvement. Don’t look now, but Texas A&M’s pass defense is ranked No. 10 nationally. There’s some context to that, to be sure (giving up a lot on the ground and also some really subpar opponents), but the defense has looked like it’s been rounding into form after some pretty obvious early-season struggles. They’ll need to continue that upward trajectory and then some if they hope to pull out a victory this Saturday.

Any offense at all. Against LSU and Missouri, the A&M offense looked simply abysmal, failing to even score a touchdown. It may seem silly to expect significant improvement at this point (it is), but it’s what it will take for A&M to have a shot in this game.

Alabama knows that a loss to this team ends their playoff chances. Hopefully they are up to the task. And, hopefully some of the banged up guys can go.

The Tide dropped substantially in the polls, as expected.

The fifth top-10 team to lose on Saturday was Alabama. The Crimson Tide never got going offensively during Tennessee’s 26-10 victory and mustered just 201 total yards against Jim Knowles’ defense.

The No. 11 Vols moved ahead of No. 13 Alabama as a result.

New to the Coaches Poll this week are Florida and Oregon.

ESPN FPI is still pretty high on the Tide.

As of Sunday, Oct. 18, Alabama is ranked as the nation’s No. 6 team with a FPI rating of 24.2. The No. 6 ranking was the same as this time last week, although the Crimson Tide’s FPI rating a week ago after the Georgia loss was 26.6, meaning it dropped after the Tennessee defeat.

ESPN’s FPI also now projects Alabama’s eventual win-loss record to be 9.2-3.0 with only a 22.4% chance to win out. In terms of the other FPI percentages, Alabama now has a 12.7% chance to win the SEC, as well as 49.4% chance to make the College Football Playoff, which dropped significantly from 82.3% last week before the Tennessee game.

Alabama’s chances of winning a national championship also took a significant hit, now sitting at only 4.9%.

In case you wondered why Greg Sankey was willing to go to 24 teams, 10 SEC teams are in the top 24 of the current FPI. There are six SEC teams in the current top 12. However, only four are in the top 12 of the SOR metric because losses are heavily punished in that one and the league continues to cannibalize itself.

Last, the SEC Shorts team captures that dynamic as their ER treats all of the previously top ranked teams that went down this weekend.

That’s about it for today. Have a great week.

Roll Tide.