Picking the most important games left on Alabama's schedule following Texas loss

Where does Alabama go from here? Defeat isn’t normal to the Crimson Tide and they already have one in the loss column after Texas’ 34-24 win in Tuscaloosa on Saturday night.

BamaOnline’s Tim Watts took a look at the rest of ‘Bama’s schedule on ‘Andy Staples On3’ on Sunday night. He said an obvious matchup that they’re going to have in bold next is their trip to College Station to play the Aggies to start October.

“As far as Alabama is concerned, they definitely have games circled. Texas A&M? I know they got throttled and took a pretty big loss to Miami. They’re still going to be a handful in College Station,” Watts said. “That game has been very competitive every year, no matter what the other team was ranked.”

After that, Watts pointed out Alabama’s contest against LSU to start November and their trip to The Plains to play The Iron Bowl are also two others that he has in mind as important.

“LSU is obviously a big game,” said Watts. “I know Auburn isn’t the team we’re used to. But you’ve seen that, several times, going to Auburn isn’t easy for Alabama or anybody. We’ve seen a less talented Auburn team be very competitive. I wouldn’t expect anything less this year.”

These picks don’t even include a pair of other home matchups against a pair of other current Top-25 against Ole Miss, which comes in less than two weeks, and Tennessee on October 21st.

The loss to the Longhorns might suggest that things aren’t going to trend in the right direction for the Crimson Tide this season. However, while a 1-1 start isn’t ideal, Watts has every expectation that ‘Bama will be a favorite the rest of the way as they look to avoid a second loss or more.

“Alabama should have the most talent as they go through the rest of this schedule,” said Watts. “I can’t think of anybody off the top of my head where they don’t match up well.”

Nick Saban on loss vs. Texas: ‘It’s midterm, it’s not the final’

Alabama‘s 34-24 loss to Texas at home was the ninth suffered by Nick Saban inside Bryant-Denny Stadium during his 17-year tenure.

Still, the week two matchup was early enough in the season to where the Crimson Tide should be able to rebound unscathed in the long run if they can right their wrongs in the coming weeks. One more loss could ruin all of that so Alabama is going to have to tread lightly if it doesn’t want to miss out on the College Football Playoff for a second consecutive season.

“This was a test for us. I told the players early in the week last week that this was gonna be a test. We were gonna play a really good team and we would actually find out where we were as a team,” Saban said postgame. “And this was a test for everybody.

“It was a test for the coaches, it was a test for me. It was a test for all the players. And we obviously didn’t do very well. But it’s the midterm, not the final. So if we can learn from some of the mistakes that we made, coaches and players alike? We can all get better and have a lot better opportunity, I think, to be successful in the future.”