Alabama came into Week 12 with all the momentum. Just one more win, and they’d have secured a shot at the conference championship. Oklahoma derailed those plans. Now, Kalen DeBoer’s side faces a must-win situation against Auburn in Week 14. The Tide need some inspiration, and former Alabama QB Greg McElroy is here to help.

Nick Saban hated playing at Jordan-Hare. It’s one stadium where he thought weird things happened to Alabama. Of course, when your opponents return a missed field goal kick for a game-winning touchdown, you’re bound to question the setting. However, McElroy wants the current Alabama team to see Auburn in a different light. If you have to get past them, you go and do that.

“So the good news is, clap it off. You still control your own destiny to get to Atlanta for the SEC title. You control your own destiny to get to the CFP. And you just gotta go and do it now. Simple as that,” McElroy said on his show with Cole Cubelic.

The only thing that makes it tricky is that it’s an away game at Jordan-Hare. McElroy has a response to that as well. “For everybody that’s bemoaning about ‘oh, we gotta go to Auburn, that’s gonna be tough!’ Guess what? In the BCS era, we had to go to Auburn, too,” Greg McElroy added. “In the 4-team era, we had to go to Auburn, too. It was a must-win game on many different occasions. If you wanna go chase championships, you gotta go get it.”

That’s how teams with championship ambitions should function. Every game in the playoffs is going to be a must-win scenario. The Oklahoma loss shouldn’t take away from what the current roster has achieved this season. They played four back-to-back against ranked teams and won all of them.

As McElroy said, the odds are still in their favor. PFSN’s College Football Playoff Meter has Alabama sitting at a 75% chance to make the SEC Championship Game. But after that loss to Oklahoma, things got a little shakier. They still control their own path, beat Auburn, and they’re in. If they’d taken down Oklahoma, though, they’d have had some wiggle room and could’ve survived an Auburn loss.

What really stings is their CFP chances dropping to 78.1%. That means if they slip up against Auburn, they might miss the 12-team playoff altogether. The bigger hurdle is the potential SEC tie scenarios with Georgia, Ole Miss, Texas, and Oklahoma all jockeying for playoff spots. Alabama actually holds a tiebreaker edge over Georgia since it delivered its only SEC loss. On top of that, Ole Miss lost to Georgia, helping Alabama in a three-way comparison.

The good thing is that the loss against the Sooners was by only two points. That means Alabama is still firmly in the playoff mix as a top-12 CFP team, thanks to those four straight wins over Georgia, Vandy, Mizzou, and Tennessee. So at this point, Auburn at Jordan-Hare is the only deciding factor for Kalen DeBoer’s squad. Nick Saban went 12–5 against Auburn during his time at Alabama. And back when Greg McElroy was in Tuscaloosa, Bama split the series 2–2. Regardless of the situation, they always found a way. The best example? That 2008 game where Saban’s crew straight-up steamrolled the Tigers 36–0.

Auburn’s interim coach, DJ Durkin, will be coaching in his second Iron Bowl. The Tigers, after a bye week to rest and prepare, are set to host Mercer next and are favored to win. And as for Alabama, the loss to Oklahoma revealed vulnerabilities and now puts enormous pressure on them to avoid another slip-up. So the Iron Bowl is potentially a season-ender if Auburn pulls off the upset.

Paul Finebaum’s ominous warning for Kalen DeBoer

The Auburn warning was very crucial for Kalen DeBoer. But the next two weeks in Tuscaloosa are very much incomplete without SEC spokesperson Paul Finebaum weighing in on the situation. The defeat not only snapped Alabama’s impressive 17-game home winning streak but also marked DeBoer’s first loss at Bryant-Denny Stadium. That’s when Finebaum specifically sounded the alarm about what’s coming in two weeks.

History doesn’t favor DeBoer’s squad; despite Auburn being one of the worst SEC teams right now, Alabama has notoriously struggled against the Tigers. “Let me just offer a little bit of caution before we put Alabama in there [CFP], Heather, and I think you know where I’m going here,” Finebaum said. “Alabama has a game in two weeks at Auburn. And I’m not a historian, but I’ll give you some history. Four years ago down there, Alabama needed four overtimes to win.” 

The 2021 Iron Bowl at Jordan-Hare was pure chaos. Alabama, ranked No. 3, was down 10–0 late in the fourth before Bryce Young put together a wild 97-yard touchdown drive with just 24 seconds left to tie it up. Then the game dragged all the way into four overtimes before Bama finally slipped out with a 24–22 win. The worst part was that it was against an Auburn team that ended up 6–7. And then the legendary ‘Gravedigger’ play two years ago that barely saved Alabama. Those moments highlight a trend.