Alabama’s path back into the College Football Playoff picture runs straight through Baton Rouge, and Paul Finebaum isn’t sugarcoating what’s at stake.
On ESPN’s “First Take” Monday, the analyst said the Crimson Tide’s Nov. 7 trip to LSU could make or break their postseason hopes after No. 13 Alabama fell 26-10 at Tennessee on Saturday. That loss gave Alabama back-to-back regular-season defeats for the first time since 2007, and Finebaum made it clear he views a third one as fatal.
“Right now, they’re looking at the abyss,” Finebaum said.
He pointed directly to LSU as the game that could slam the door.
“They have to go to LSU,” Finebaum said. “Now, LSU has been all over the place this year, but Alabama does not seem to play that well on the road.
I know they beat Mississippi State, but Kamario Taylor was out of that game. ... If they drop that game, they’re done.
They’re not getting in the playoff.”
Taylor did start for Mississippi State in the Oct. 3 game in Starkville, but the sophomore quarterback was dealing with an ankle injury and exited early in the fourth quarter of Alabama’s 56-23 win. The Tide’s other road victory came at Kentucky, where they trailed 17-13 at halftime before blowing the game open with a 32-0 second half in a 45-17 win.
LSU, meanwhile, is 5-2 under Lane Kiffin and moved up to No. 18 in the AP Top 25 after a 31-0 shutout of Mississippi State. Finebaum said he had already circled this matchup back in August, when he predicted Kiffin would get revenge on November 7 and deal Alabama its third loss.
The pressure on Alabama’s offense is only growing, and Finebaum said much of it has shifted to coordinator Ryan Grubb. Head coach Kalen DeBoer defended Grubb this week, saying, “I think he’s a great play-caller,” but Finebaum said the fan base has already turned.
“And the fans right now are not so much after DeBoer, they’re after Ryan Grubb, the offensive coordinator who called a miserable game Saturday,” Finebaum said. “They just got punked against Tennessee, a team that had struggled at times this year.”
That was a sharp fall from the way Alabama had been rolling early. Through five weeks, the offense was averaging 49.6 points per game.
In Knoxville, though, the Tide produced just 10 points, 201 total yards and four turnovers. Tennessee running back DeSean Bishop also gashed Alabama for 159 yards.
Grubb didn’t push back on the criticism.
“It’s embarrassing,” Grubb said. “If I was a fan or a supporter, I’d be pissed off too.”
Finebaum also connected the Tennessee loss to Alabama’s 20-17 home defeat to Georgia on Oct. 10, saying DeBoer had burned through the momentum from the previous week.
“DeBoer threw away all the goodwill he got a week ago in that loss to Georgia, but Alabama is really in trouble at the moment,” he said.
Alabama is 5-2 overall and 3-2 in the SEC. The Tide host Texas A&M on Saturday, then have an open date before that trip to Baton Rouge.
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