Jumbo Package: Alabama football at Vanderbilt previews and predictions
· Yahoo Sports
Happy Friday, everyone. The women’s basketball team dropped one to Memphis last night. Based on the last two outings, this may be a tough season in new head coach Pauline Love’s first season. The men play at 8pm tonight against Seton Hall, and we will have coverage of that one later.
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Football plays at Vandy tomorrow in what should be a relatively easy win. Your previews:
Unlike 2024, Alabama goes into Nashville with something to prove. Yes, the Crimson Tide will take on Vanderbilt in a very similar position: coming off a big win and right in the thick of the College Football Playoff conversation. But Alabama seems aware of what could happen when its guards are down, paired with the fact that even with a No. 3 ranking in the CFP, there’s no room for error with two losses, especially to a team in Vanderbilt with one SEC win in six tries. Vanderbilt’s struggled to find its identity on offense with talented freshman quarterback Jared Curtis leading a unit that has not scored more than 25 points in SEC play And the Commodores have one of the worst defenses in the conference. Alabama knows what it’s getting into. And it should show up Saturday in Nashville.
Prediction: No. 7 Alabama 38, Vanderbilt 10
Russell and the Crimson Tide have won five games by 16 or more points this season and have won by more than 10 points in all seven of their victories. So, this Vanderbilt team that has struggled against SEC – and ranked – competition is going to have a hard time pulling off an upset on Saturday afternoon.
Alabama is the No. 2 team in the country in net adjusted EPA/Play while Vandy clocks in at No. 60. The Commodores have really struggled on offense, ranking 112th in early downs EPA/Play and rank outside the top-75 in both EPA/Pass and EPA/Rush.Alabama’s offense has been better (in terms of success rate) than its defense, but the Crimson Tide have allowed 26 or fewer points in all but one game (a win over Florida State).
I think they take care of business against a Vandy team that has just one SEC win in 2026.
Pick: Alabama -15.5
“I’m taking Alabama to win the game, 38-17,” McElroy said. “I think they’ll cover that (betting) number of 17.5 (points). Vanderbilt’s splits gives them a puncher’s chance, but Alabama’s quarterback (Keelon Russell) has been punching back with 40-yard passes all season.”
McElroy believes for Vandy to have any shot, it must shorten the game, meaning less possessions and less opportunities for Alabama to crank up its high-octane offense.
“Alabama finishes drives, and Vanderbilt gives away possessions,” added McElroy, who’s not buying into any nonsense going down on Saturday afternoon in the form of another shocking upset in the Music City.
No. 3 in the latest College Football Playoff rankings, Alabama has love from the committee, and now it just has to finish the drill with Chattanooga and Auburn to close. First, it has to take down a Vanderbilt team that finally came up with its first SEC win of the season, beating Mississippi State 25-23.
Alabama might not be its sharpest out of the gate – a hangover effect from the 31-13 win at LSU – but just when it seems like this might be interesting, the Commodore turnovers will come. Bama will convert off all three turnovers it generates.
Prediction: Alabama 37, Vanderbilt 17
No. 3 Alabama at Vanderbilt (12:45 p.m., SECN). Vandy ended a five-game losing streak by beating Mississippi State last week, but if you can gain only 328 yards against MSU, you might gain only 164 against Alabama. Vandy blitzes a lot and sometimes gets home, but it might take about 10 sacks of Keelon Russell for this one to become a scare.
Current line: Bama -17.5 (down from -19.5) | SP+ projection: Bama by 21.7 | FPI projection: Bama by 24.7
Here’s a stat: DeBoer is 5-0 coming off bye weeks at Alabama. He’s also 2-2 in games after winning that post-bye game and one of those wins came against Mercer. The week after that in 2024, Alabama took that 24-3 beating at Oklahoma.
That tells me this team gets up for games with Georgia and LSU before suffering an emotional letdown.
Granted, DeBoer and several assistants remember the trap Vanderbilt set in 2024, but the age of roster turnover unburdened the current locker room of the horror that redheaded stepchild unleashed on Alabama.
Just the suggestion that Keelon Russell should rest in Nashville if physically cleared to play adds to the mental hurdle for this Tide team.
Also, Vanderbilt’s shown signs of offensive improvement in recent weeks. That could be the result of the No. 2 overall recruit in the 2026 class, Jared Curtis, coming into his own at the college level.
The pick: Alabama 34, Vanderbilt 14
As you can see, pretty much everyone is picking Alabama to land somewhere in the 30s while Vandy fails to get out of the teens, and that is where this one should land. Vandy has a talented QB with one primary receiver who dominates the targets.
For lack of a better term, Vanderbilt’s passing offense is quite predictable. Wide receiver Tristen Brown is second on the team in receptions (17) and receiving yards (228), which is about 40 fewer catches and 500 fewer receiving yards than first-place Junior Sherrill, who also leads Vanderbilt with four touchdown grabs.
Sherrill’s four receptions in Week 1 were his fewest this season, as he’s hauled in anywhere from 5-8 targets ever since. He’s had just two contests with under 60 yards, with a 107-yard (and a touchdown) performance against now-No. 1 Georgia being one of his best outings. The Georgia game was one of his five games with at least 90 receiving yards.Sherrill lines up as an X and Z receiver, meaning Alabama outside cornerbacks Zabien Brown and Dijon Lee Jr. will have their hands full on Saturday. Brown, who is probable to face the Commodores, missed the Texas A&M game following a first-half injury against Tennessee, and he sat out the second half of last week against LSU due to the lingering lower-body injury.
This isn’t quite a cupcake game, but it’s not far from it. And, it is certainly a test of maturity. They should beat Vanderbilt handily as long as they aren’t feeling too good about themselves for last week. Hope for the best.
Urban Meyer is gumping hard this season.
Meyer did more than include Alabama among a crowded group of championship hopefuls. He identified the Crimson Tide and Bulldogs as two teams whose talent separates them when everything comes together.
“When Bama is rocking and rolling, and you turn on that film, you’re like, ‘oh my God,’” Meyer said. “I think Georgia and Bama are interchangeable.”
That comparison captures the strength of his endorsement. In Meyer’s view, Alabama’s ceiling belongs in the same conversation as Georgia’s, with little separating the two when they perform at their highest level.
“I think Georgia and Bama are the two most talented, and when they are both playing their best game, I think they’re a little bit above everyone else,” Meyer said.
If you want to football nerd a bit, check out former Michigan QB David Cone’s breakdown of this key touchdown from the LSU game.
HUDDLE UP: Keelon Russell's touchdown strike to Cederian Morgan versus LSU pic.twitter.com/9DoLAbE7ln
— Crain & Cone (@crainandcone) November 11, 2026
Last, college football desperately needs something like the quadrant system used by the college basketball committee. David Cobb of CBS has a model for it.
So while the Crimson Tide stand at No. 1 in our resume ranking today and at No. 3 in the College Football Playoff Rankings, their staying power in both is limited. As the picture stands entering Week 11, each of the five teams directly behind Alabama in our resume rankings can catch the Crimson Tide in resume score by winning their final three games — even if Alabama does the same.
Based on college basketball’s Wins Above Bubble, our resume scores assign a value for each win/loss based on the likelihood that the average top-25 team would win or lose the game. That value is determined by where your opponents rank in the CFB Metrics Consensus and where the game was played. If you beat the No. 1 team on the road, you get +0.98 added to your resume score in reflection of the fact that the average No. 25 team would lose on the road against No. 1 approximately 98% of the time.
We are taking another page out of college basketball’s playbook this week by adding quadrants to each team’s resume. They are also determined by where your opponents rank in the CFB Metrics Consensus.
That’s about it for today. Have a great weekend.
Roll Tide.