Question of the week: Is Alabama headed for an unbeaten season?

Each week during the season, the USA TODAY Sports college staff (Paul Myerberg, Lindsay Schnell, George Schroeder, Erick Smith, Eddie Timanus and Dan Wolken) will provide their answers to an intriguing question from college football. This week:

Not to throw any rat poison on the fire (yes, we know that is a mixed metaphor), but is there any reason to believe Alabama actually could lose a game this season?

Paul Myerberg

Just because teams can beat Alabama doesn't mean they will. Looking at the opponents left on the Tide's schedule, the only one seemingly capable of actually pulling it off is Auburn, and even that's a big stretch. One thing we know for sure is it won't be Tennessee. At this point it might make more sense to ask which teams in the entire FBS can beat Alabama. 

Lindsay Schnell

Nick Saban trusts in the process, and I trust in Nick Saban. I’ve learned some things in my years, and one of them is to not pick against the coach who has five national titles. The SEC is mediocre outside of Bama, so I’m not concerned about the Tide in any of its remaining games. However as a general life rule, rivalries are weird, which means anything can happen against Auburn.

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George Schroeder

Um, yes. Absolutely there’s reason to believe Alabama could lose — starting with the fact that the Crimson Tide have lost at least one game in each of the last seven seasons. That includes three of Alabama’s four national championships under Nick Saban; only his first Tide title-winner, in 2009, went undefeated.

Sticking solely with this season, it seems unlikely the Tide would lose against most of the opponents in a diminished SEC. But a road game at Auburn and potentially the SEC championship game — assuming the opponent is Georgia — could present formidable obstacles to perfection. A Playoff opponent (and yeah, like everybody else, we have Bama fast-forwarded into the four-team bracket) is likely to feature as dangerous an offense as the Tide has faced.

Am I picking Alabama to lose? No. Could the Tide lose? Yes. 

Erick Smith

We saw just two weeks ago Oklahoma lose as a 30-point favorite, so anything is possible in college football. Alabama, however, is a different team than most. Nick Saban’s motivational approach and the amount of talent in the program leave them less vulnerable to the lows other teams face.

The formula for beating the Crimson Tide requires the opponent to have a dynamic offense that can possess the ball and put points on the board. Looking at the rest of the schedule, there doesn’t appear to be one that fits that prototype. Auburn and LSU can slow down the Alabama offense, but the Tigers will have hard-pressed to move the ball in both games.

Should Georgia make it to the SEC title game then there is some hope for the anti-Tide contingent. But it’s hard to see either Jake Fromm or Jacob Eason playing the role of Deshaun Watson in Atlanta. Perhaps if Alabama gets matched against Penn State or Oklahoma in the College Football Playoff, it could happen. Don’t hold your breath, however.

Eddie Timanus

Anything could happen. As we know, college football is a series of random events with more variables than your teenager’s algebra exam. A funny bounce here or a gust of wind there can change the course of entire seasons.

But as we also know, Nick Saban’s ‘process’ is all about removing as many of those random elements as possible, keeping as many events in his team’s control as he can by constant repetition and relentless preparation. He’s not the only coach who tries to do that, of course, but right now nobody does it better in the college game.

It would take an almost flawless performance to beat the Crimson Tide. None of their remaining opponents seems capable of such an effort, with the possible exception of Georgia in a potential SEC title game.

Dan Wolken

Of course there is. It's called history. In all his time at LSU and Alabama, Nick Saban has coached only one undefeated team, which was his first title at Alabama in 2009. Last year he got oh-so-close, but it wasn't meant to be. The bottom line is that going undefeated is difficult and maybe even unadvisable. Every national champion in the College Football Playoff era has had a loss. Sometimes you need one to take the pressure off and refocus, as Clemson did last season.

So even though you can't point to a particular game on Alabama's schedule and say it's one they should lose, the odds are they'll get tripped up whether it's LSU, Auburn, Georgia in the SEC championship game or somewhere in the playoff. If you're a coach, you just have to hope that loss comes in the regular season rather than a postseason game. Alabama has looked dominant recently, but just like last season against Clemson, if you can get them in a possession-by-possession game in the fourth quarter another team's quarterback advantage may win the day.