Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit claim Alabama should not be ranked after loss to Florida State

Alabama‘s shocking loss to unranked Florida State will have major implications in Tuesday’s AP Top 25 poll ahead of Week 2. It appears that some AP voters don’t even have the Crimson Tide in their rankings this week.

According to Rece Davis, Saturday’s performance was enough to sour him on the Crimson Tide until they’ve proved themselves otherwise. He was blunt about his upcoming AP vote.

“Alabama has been in every poll — the last time they weren’t in the poll was 2007. I didn’t rank them this week,” Davis said during TCU‘s 48-14 blowout victory over Bill Belichick and North Carolina. “Eighth to out.”

Davis’ ESPN broadcast colleague and fellow College GameDay host Kirk Herbstreit agreed. “Yeah, I think that’s fair,” he said. “I don’t think they should be ranked after that performance.”

The 31-17 loss came as Alabama had no answer defensively for the Seminoles’ offense. Florida State racked up nearly 400 yards of total offense behind new quarterback Tommy Castellanos. He was the team’s leading rusher and was responsible for 230 of Florida State’s 388 yards of offense.

Alabama struck first, but the Seminoles quickly tied the game by the end of the first quarter before scoring the next 10 points to take a 17-7 lead into halftime. The Crimson Tide cut the lead to one touchdown in the second half before Florida State put the game out of reach following a 14-yard touchdown run by Gavin Sawchuk.

Florida State is coming off a 2-10 season in 2024, so Alabama came into the matchup as a two-score favorite. Many expected the Crimson Tide to walk into Tallahassee and take the victory, but Florida State backed up its quarterback’s smack talk and now, many are questioning what’s next for the Crimson Tide under head coach Kalen DeBoer.

For now, Alabama can only play who’s in front of them. The Crimson Tide has non-conference matchups against UL Monroe and Wisconsin. They’ll take on Georgia to open SEC play on Sept. 27.

After Georgia, key games left on the Crimson Tide’s schedule will see Alabama will host Tennessee on Oct. 18, travel to South Carolina on Oct. 25, host LSU on Nov. 8 as well as Oklahoma on Nov. 15 all in consecutive matchups. All of those teams were ranked in the preseason top 25.

For now, the Crimson Tide will get to battle UL Monroe during Week 2 as Alabama seeks its first win of the season. Kickoff is set for 7:45 p.m. ET live on the SEC Network.