Former Alabama quarterback shares his biggest concern about the Crimson Tide’s chances of pushing for a national championship
Greg McElroy has one major concern regarding Alabama’s chances to push for a national title in 2025.
Alabama is looking for make another push for a national championship in 2025. After four seasons of not bringing one home to Tuscaloosa, Crimson Tide fans are itching to get back to the top of the mountain. Kalen DeBoer had the group competitive for a College Football Playoff spot a season ago, but the expectation is for there to be a step forward in Year 2 after taking over for Nick Saban.
Some are concerned about Alabama’s chances of getting back to the promise land, and that includes former national championship-winning quarterback Greg McElroy. Earlier this week, he shared his biggest concern for the 2025 team, and why that concern could keep them from going all the way this season.
“What concerns me about Alabama is compared to the best versions of Alabama, compared to the roster of 2015, the roster of 2016, the roster of 2020, 2018, all those teams that were always in the mix for a national championship, they all had unbelievable depth,” McElroy said on Always College Football. “This year’s team does not have the same type of depth that they’ve had in the past when they’ve won national championships.”
In some ways, I’d push back on this notion.
Nowadays, very few teams have adequate depth across the board. Maybe at certain positions, but everyone has a drop off somewhere. Alabama brings solid depth at a number of positions, including wide receiver, running back, defensive back, Bandit, Wolf and, depending on the health status of veteran Deontae Lawson, off-ball linebacker. The interior of the offensive line has good depth too.
Some of the potential problem areas include offensive tackle, tight end and on the interior of the defensive line. I like Alabama’s two starters at tackle, and Olaus Alinen could prove to be a serviceable, short-term fill in with one of the freshmen, Jackson Lloyd or Michael Carroll, possibly filling the void as the season progresses, but that’s certainly an unknown.
Alabama has numbers at tight end, but outside of Josh Cuevas, a lot of it is unproven on the college or SEC level. That’s fair. I also think the interior of the defensive line has four solid pieces in the rotation, and possibly five if Kelby Collins is mostly an interior option. That’s exactly where you want that rotation to be, but any injuries would start to strain the depth with nothing proven behind those guys.
So once again, McElroy has a point. There are a couple of positions where Alabama cannot afford to lose players. And he’s right that last year did include some injuries, which he did a nice job of highlighting during his show.
“Last year, Alabama kind of quietly got hit with the injury bug,” McElroy said. “Qua Russaw, their outstanding pass rusher, looked really good in the first couple of games, and then against Wisconsin, he gets banged up and is kind of dealing with some injuries throughout the season.
“They lost Deontae Lawson to a knee injury at the midway point. The defense wasn’t quite the same. They lost Keon Sabb there in the back end. They lost Que Robinson, who is an outstanding pass rusher in his own right, to a broken arm late in the year. They lost Cole Adams. And those are just the guys that missed significant time.
“The guys I just listed doesn’t include the guys that were playing far below 100% because of nagging injuries that they suffered throughout the season. There were several guys that couldn’t even practice because they were so banged up, and yet they had to play on Saturday because they didn’t have the depth. They knew that if they were out, there would be a significant drop off from the starters to the backups.”
Once again, all accurate statements. And if Alabama continues to deal with those sort of issues in 2025, it’s going to hinder — and potentially cripple — their chances of reaching their ultimate goal. But you can say this about any team. Sometimes, that’s just the luck of the draw, and as I mentioned before, just about every team is dealing with deficiencies at various positions. Hopefully, Alabama is able to avoid any issues this time around.
