Yahoo Sports puts Alabama at No. 11 in preseason Top 25, framing a rebound chase in DeBoer’s second act

Alabama opens the 2026 college football season with a familiar championship expectation, but it also starts farther down the national ladder than the program traditionally occupies. In Yahoo Sports’ preseason College Football Top 25, the Crimson Tide are ranked No. 11, a spot that reflects how last season’s and the recent two-year stretch under coach Kalen DeBoer have landed the team on the outside looking in compared with the top contenders.

The ranking comes with a specific context about DeBoer’s early tenure. Yahoo Sports notes that Alabama has lost eight games over the first two seasons of his leadership. That record is the backdrop for why the publication describes the team as striving to reestablish itself as a true national title contender rather than treating the Tide as an assumed finalist by default.

August is also when the schedule narrative tightens. Yahoo Sports ties its preseason ranking to the countdown toward the season’s opening weekend, stating that Week Zero arrives on Aug. 29. For teams built around summer development and early readiness, the weeks leading into that date often decide which units have the confidence and cohesion to play faster and cleaner when game pressure starts.

A No. 11 placement matters because it sets a different storyline for everything that follows. When a team starts in the top 10, it can afford more missteps without immediately turning the season into damage control. When a team starts at No. 11, the margin for error typically shrinks, especially if early nonconference results do not match the expectations attached to the Alabama brand.

Still, preseason rankings are not a verdict, and they rarely capture the full set of variables that define a championship run. They are, at best, a snapshot of how voters and analysts weigh returning experience, offseason development, and early-year matchup concerns. Alabama’s position in this list suggests the national media is treating the Tide as a credible contender, but one that must prove it across the early weeks rather than simply being granted a top-two path.

What to watch next is Alabama’s ability to translate August preparation into consistent execution once the calendar flips. With Week Zero on Aug. 29, the Tide’s first meaningful stretch of football will likely determine whether the No. 11 label reads as a temporary positioning choice or whether it becomes the beginning of a season that stays on the outside of the playoff conversation.

For a program accustomed to arguing for national championships, the key storyline is the gap between expectation and current perception. Yahoo Sports’ preseason Top 25 suggests that, for now, Alabama’s climb back toward the top is a process rather than an automatic destination, and the start of the 2026 season will be the first test of whether that process accelerates quickly.