Kalen DeBoer has already lived through a couple of Alabama losses that made people do a double take, and that matters heading into year three. One bad defeat can be shrugged off. A few of them, especially the kind a program like Alabama should never hand out, start to shape the conversation in a hurry.
That is why the Crimson Tide’s 2025 schedule deserves a hard look. Yes, Alabama will face teams that can absolutely beat it - Georgia and Texas A&M were playoff teams last season, LSU and Tennessee are road rivalries, and South Carolina has given Alabama problems in recent years. But there is a separate category here: the losses that would be flat-out inexcusable for DeBoer.
Alabama is not losing to East Carolina or Chattanooga. The real question is which other games would cross the line from disappointing to unacceptable.
The most glaring one sits near the top of the list: Florida State on Sept. 19 in Tuscaloosa. Alabama already dropped last year’s road meeting with the Seminoles, and losing both ends of the home-and-home would be a disaster.
The source is blunt about it: there is no way on god's green earth that DeBoer can say everything is fine in Tuscaloosa if the Crimson Tide lose both legs of their home-and-home with Florida State. A home loss to this Florida State team would be an unforgivable football sin, and it would be the one defeat that could push DeBoer onto the hot seat.
Back-to-back losses to Mike Norvell’s team would send a message nobody in Tuscaloosa wants to hear.
Auburn comes next on Nov. 28 in Tuscaloosa. The Iron Bowl always carries weight, but this one would come with the pressure squarely on Alabama.
Auburn has hired Alex Golesh, who arrives with work to do after what the source describes as the program’s worst spot since the 1940s. Still, that does not change the expectation.
Alabama has not lost to Auburn since before COVID, and a home loss here could end up deciding the Crimson Tide’s playoff fate. That is exactly why it would be so hard to excuse.
Then there is Mississippi State on Oct. 3 in Starkville. Alabama has not lost to the Bulldogs since 2007, and the series has been lopsided for a long time.
But Jeff Lebby has made Mississippi State feisty, and the Bulldogs did knock off Arizona State last season. With Georgia waiting the next week, this is the kind of spot where Alabama could get careless.
It would not be the most shocking upset on the schedule, but it would still be the sort of slip that raises alarms.
Kentucky on Sept. 12 in Lexington also belongs on the list, even if the odds of an Alabama loss there feel slim. The Wildcats are led by first-time head coach Will Stein, and the source makes clear that Kentucky still has real work to do on offense.
The timing helps Alabama too, with an early September kickoff and none of the late-season trickiness that can make Kentucky tougher at night. Still, this is exactly the sort of game DeBoer cannot afford to let his team treat casually.
The idea of Alabama losing there is baffling, but that is the point: these are the kind of games DeBoer will lose.
Finally, Vanderbilt on Nov. 14 in Nashville rounds out the list. Alabama already lost there two years ago, and that game helped launch Diego Pavia’s SEC arrival.
Vanderbilt went 10-2 last season and barely missed the playoff, but the source still calls the Commodores a likely pullback team this fall, with a 7-5 season mentioned as a possibility. What makes this one dangerous is the psychological piece.
Vanderbilt cannot gain any more confidence against Alabama. A second straight loss in Nashville would be a bad sign for a program that should not be getting pushed around there.
Put simply, DeBoer’s margin for error is not the same as everyone else’s. Some losses are just losses. These five would say something far more troubling.
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