Those top 10 rankings have fallen by the wayside for Alabama and Missouri. Still clinging to now-precarious playoff hopes, the 15th-ranked Crimson Tide (5-2, 2-2 SEC) and No. 21 Tigers meet Saturday in Tuscaloosa for what amounts to an elimination game.
“The sense of urgency is definitely up now,” Alabama defensive lineman Jah-Marien Latham said, “knowing that the chances of getting to the playoffs are slimmer than they were early in the season.” Alabama started the season ranked fifth and spent a week at No. 1 after beating No.
2 Georgia. Then came losses at Vanderbilt and No. 7 Tennessee over the past three games with a 27-25 win over South Carolina in between.
Missouri (6-1, 2-1) can certainly relate after edging struggling Auburn, 21-17, last weekend. Missouri was seventh to open the season but fell 41-10 to now-No. 14 Texas A&M in the team's first road SEC game.
Now comes the second. “I think the first thing is we can’t play overanalyzing every situation," Tigers coach Eli Drinkwitz said. “We can’t have too many checks on both sides of the ball.
We can’t have too many what ifs, you know, we can’t have if they do this, then we’re going to do this ...
.” Expectations were baked into the Alabama program after Nick Saban's run of six national championships in his 17 seasons, which makes the recent struggles under his successor Kalen DeBoer hard to swallow at 'Bama. “We know that being a championship football team is hard,” DeBoer said.
"We all sig.