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The Tuscaloosa News
Iron Bowl road trip with high stakes? It's 2023 all over again for Alabama football
- Story byThe Tuscaloosa News
- Iron Bowl road trip with high stakes? It's 2023 all over again for Alabama football
The Iron Bowl question came up a week early, as it always does, and Deontae Lawson swatted it down, like a team captain should.
"We've got another opponent first," the Alabama football linebacker said Saturday following UA's gutting 23-21 loss to Oklahoma . "One day at a time."
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Yes, Eastern Illinois awaits its paycheck next week. Relative to the contracts of most overmatched non-conference opponents, the FCS Panthers will be a cheap date at $560,000. While Oklahoma was nipping Alabama by a slim margin, a 3-8 EIU team was getting blown out by the mighty Lindenwood Lions , themselves just 5-6.
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But a win over Eastern Illinois doesn't help put Alabama in the SEC Championship Game, and it certainly doesn't help put the Crimson Tide in the College Football Playoff.
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Only the Iron Bowl can do that, and Jordan-Hare Stadium doesn't yield prizes like that easily to Auburn 's archrival. But those are the measuring sticks for success in coach Kalen DeBoer's second season, just as they were for his first. And with the loss to OU, stakes in the annual Iron Bowl just went WAAAAY up.
Hmmm. An Iron Bowl on the Plains, against an overmatched-on-paper Tigers team, with everything on the line? Sound familiar? If not, your memory only needs a shovel big enough to dig back two years. That's 2023 all over again, when the Crimson Tide needed Jalen Milroe 's fourth-and-23 miracle to nail down a place in the SEC title game, as well as stay in the hunt for a CFP berth.
The OU loss puts the Crimson Tide pretty much in the exact same position again.
Win it, and there's a chance Alabama will head to Atlanta in early December with a conference title in reach, and it could also be all UA needs to be invited to the CFP party as well. Games not involving Alabama will play big roles in all the possibilities, but as a disappointed UA quarterback Ty Simpson noted after OU loss, "we still control our destiny."
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Lose the Iron Bowl, and DeBoer's second season could end up no more redeeming than his first. A second SEC loss would almost certainly knock Alabama out of SEC title contention, and a third regular-season loss could put it out of the CFP picture, as well. The CFP selection committee's offseason pledge to consider strength of schedule more heavily guarantees nothing, really. Alabama currently has the nation's six-toughest schedule per ESPN, but no team wants the committee chairman's made-for-TV explanations to stand between it and a ticket to the dance.
Auburn , meanwhile, is slogging through a miserable season at 4-6, has fired coach Hugh Freeze and has little to play for at this point — except for the one thing that can always bring out the very best performance the Tigers can muster.
A chance to spoil their archrival's entire season.
At home, where spoilers spoil best.
Tuscaloosa News sport columnist Chase Goodbread.
Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of Crimson Cover TV on WVUA-23. Reach him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on X.com @chasegoodbread.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Iron Bowl trip with high stakes? It's 2023 again for Alabama football
