Under head coach Kalen DeBoer, the bye week has been important to the success of Alabama’s season, whether that was through regrouping after a loss or avoiding mistakes and injuries ahead of important games.
The Crimson Tide’s bye weeks under DeBoer have been some of the most important games of the season. Both last season and this season, the bye weeks were placed before the games against Georgia and LSU.
With DeBoer at the helm, the Crimson Tide is 3-0 coming off bye weeks, with victories over Georgia twice, 2024 and 2025, and a victory over LSU in 2024. In 2024, the bye week before LSU was especially important to the team, as it had two losses already on the season and a third loss would have meant elimination from the playoffs.
The Crimson Tide used the extra preparation time to march into LSU and defeat the Tigers 42-13 to keep its playoff hopes alive. While the Crimson Tide eventually missed the playoffs after the Oklahoma loss, the bye week gave extra preparation before an important road game against a hungry LSU team that also had two losses, leading to a dominant victory.
The team was without star defensive lineman Tim Keenan III and star running back Jam Miller for the first three games of the season. The Crimson Tide entered its first bye week with a record of 2-1 but had not played any conference games yet.
This was huge for the team, as it came before the Crimson Tide’s biggest challenge of the season, a road game against top-10 Georgia. While the Crimson Tide has historically defeated Georgia most of the time the teams met, it faced a tougher challenge this year: a road game at Sanford Stadium.
Thanks to the bye week, the Crimson Tide not only had extra time to prepare a game plan for Georgia, but it also had extra recovery time for key missing players Miller and Keenan III.
Both players returned in time for the game against the Bulldogs, and the Crimson Tide went on to win 24-21. However, the difference in time between the bye weeks is especially noticeable this season, given the gauntlet of ranked teams the Crimson Tide has faced.
Since its bye week, Alabama faced four Top 20 teams, including No. 6 Georgia and No. 11 Tennessee. Not only did it face four ranked teams in a row, including two road games, but the team also won all four of these games. While its game Saturday was against an unranked team, it was on the road against a hungry South Carolina. The team turned the ball over multiple times, made crucial mistakes and struggled to get the offense going but still escaped with a 29-22 victory in its last game before the bye week.
The team looked visibly exhausted on the field and did not play its best football. It was also without freshman wide receiver Lotzeir Brooks, who has made a big impact in recent games. His absence was noticeable in the game, amid the drops from multiple Alabama receivers that almost proved to be costly. This bye week occurring before the LSU game is important, as Brooks could be available by then.
“Again, great win for us, a much-needed bye,” DeBoer said. “It’s been an intense five weeks, but I think it even goes back before that when we had our backs to the wall, even during the bye week, and [against] Wisconsin … Proud of the guys, and we’ll take the momentum. We’ll have some great practices, I know that. Looking forward to the next one in two weeks.”
After a tough game where the Crimson Tide barely won on the road against an unranked South Carolina, its next game is not for two weeks thanks to the bye week. The team will get some much-needed rest after a tough schedule and a seven-game win streak before it plays three straight home games this November.
The extra time will be important for the Crimson Tide, which prepares to face the Tigers on Nov. 8. The Tigers have three losses this season, all in SEC play, which could mean their playoff chances are over. However, LSU could look to play spoiler for Alabama to avenge its home blowout loss to the Crimson Tide last season.
“We kicked off the road game with Georgia, that was a big one against an SEC [team],” DeBoer said. “I think we’ve understood what this sequence of games was gonna be like, and just knew that, like I said earlier in the week, we’re in the stretch. We’re not through the stretch, we’re right in it. Again, [I’m] happy we got a little bye week to get guys rested and be back.”
Alabama should be ready, though, as it has plenty of time to study film, fix mistakes from Saturday’s game like turnovers and dropped passes and recover from injuries. The Tigers are just one of the many tests that lie ahead for the Crimson Tide, but for now, the team should use this time off to prepare for LSU.
