Paul Finebaum reveals what's at stake for Alabama, Kalen DeBoer in the Iron Bowl

The Iron Bowl will be played on Saturday night this weekend down on The Plains. It’ll be an edition of the rivalry too that has, beyond bragging rights, everything on the line for Alabama as they face off with Auburn.

Paul Finebaum previewed what a loss for ‘Bama would mean in Tuscaloosa while on ‘McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning’ on Monday. He knew it would go down as one of the all-time losses for the Tide to the Tigers, with it meaning they’d all but certainly be out of the College Football Playoff.

“Well, I think you just have to start examining in the pantheon of Alabama Football seasons for which loss would be more crushing. It’s hard for me to find one bigger than ’13 only because that took something away from a really great team that could have done something that nobody had ever done before. This will just knock Alabama out of the playoff,” said Finebaum. “It is pretty similar to Oklahoma last year, except it would feel a lot worse.”

As they prepare this week to head down to Jordan-Hare, Alabama is at 9-2 (6-1) overall this season. A third loss, with them currently sitting in the final at-large spot for the field, would very likely eliminate them from consideration for the CFP. A second loss in conference play would also eliminate them from their other possible route into the bracket with the SEC Championship, with Georgia (7-1) already done in league and with Texas A&M (7-0) and Ole Miss (6-1) also still in contention ahead of respective rivalry matchups of their own on Black Friday against Texas and Mississippi State.

So, as far as the history of the Iron Bowl, this one has a ton of stakes on it, namely for Alabama. That also applies to Kalen DeBoer, who could also lose a lot of the goodwill he has built up this fall with a loss to Auburn that would, a lot like last season, cost him another playoff appearance in two years now down in T-Town.

“I think, for Kalen DeBoer, sadly, it would undo a lot of the progress that he has made,” said Finebaum.

Alabama can avoid all of that by just winning on Saturday, as they’d go on to be back in the SEC Championship and almost certainly be back in the College Football Playoff. But, based on the history of this game, there’s no guarantee of that, which is not a spot they wanted to find themselves in, when they take the field for an Iron Bowl at Jordan-Hare.