2024 Alabama Crimson Tide Guide to What's New in College Football

From the playoff expansion to the new coaching staff, nearly everything is different for the Crimson Tide this season.

Jul 17, 2024; Dallas, TX, USA; Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer speaking at Omni Dallas Hotel. / Brett Patzke-USA TODAY Sports

The first major game of the 2024 college football season resulted in the first upset. Yep, Georgia Tech over Florida State in Dublin seemed to be a great introduction if not opening salvo. There was also Nick Saban on College Gameday instead of storming around a sideline, and more players and coaches on new teams than anyone could really keep up with.

For example, as our own Joe Gaither noted in Sunday's Roll Call, there were three former Alabama players on the Florida State side (in addition to Georgia Tech head coach Brent Key being a former Saban assistant coach with the Crimson Tide). Malik Benson caught four passes for 39 yards, Roydell Williams took 12 carries for 42 yards and a touchdown while catching three passes for 31 yards, and Earl Little Jr. made one tackle.

Consequently, there's a lot for everyone to get accustomed to, and on numerous levels. It's especially true in Tuscaloosa, where fans still seem a little numb and don't know quite to expect from Kaleb DeBoer and the start to the post-Saban era. They're very aware, though, that the contrast from last yeat to this one is as great as the remodeled office of the head coach, which went from the wood, cozy setting with Saban to a much more modern look.

Very different office styles for Nick Saban and Kalen DeBoer pic.twitter.com/v5YeGif6Xm

— Blake Byler (@blakebyler45) August 16, 2024

Welcome to the longest season in college football history, starting earlier and ending later, with plenty to fill in between. Here's a primer to get you through the changes minus all the player movement through the transfer portal:

Alabama Crimson Tide

• Someone other than Nick Saban is coaching the team.
• New coordinators and schemes. Just two assistant coaches returned.
• Like usual, Alabama lost 10 players in the NFL draft, including five in the first two rounds.
• The Crimson Tide lost a lot of players to the transfer portal, but few starters (Caleb Downs being a big-time exception). It gained some key players, though, including Germie Bernard and Parker Brailsford from Washington.
• Projected depth chart has a lot of new names. There's still a ton of talent, though, with six players named to the Sports Illustrated 2024 College Football Preseason All-American List, including three first-team selections
• The key questions are how long will it take everyone to mesh, and how well the secondary will fare.

College Football Playoff

• The playoff is expanding from four to 12 teams.
• First round games will be Dec. 20-21 on college campuses. The quarterfinals will be at the Fiesta, Peach, Rose and Sugar Bowls on Dec. 31-Jan. 1. The semifinals will be at the Orange and Cotton Bowls on Jan. 9-10. The National Championship Game is set for Jan. 20 in Atlanta.  
• The first CFP rankings will be revealed on Nov. 5, at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN. The subsequent rankings will be announced on every Tuesday through the Dec. 3, with the selection show set for Sunday, Dec. 8, the day after the final conference championship games are played.

The selection committee members are: 
Chris Ault (former head coach and athletics director, University of Nevada)
Chet Gladchuk (athletics director, U.S. Naval Academy)
Jim Grobe (former head coach, Ohio University, Wake Forest and Baylor)
Warde Manuel (chair) (athletics director, University of Michigan)
Randall McDaniel (College and Pro Football Hall of Fame member and former All-American offensive lineman, Arizona State University)
Gary Pinkel (former head coach, University of Toledo and University of Missouri)
Mack Rhoades (athletics director, Baylor University)
Mike Riley (former college head coach, Oregon State and Nebraska, as well as head coach in the NFL, CFL, WLAF, AAF and USFL; played collegiately at Alabama 1971-74)
David Sayler (athletics director, Miami University, OH)
Will Shields (College and Pro Football Hall of Fame member and former All-American offensive lineman, University of Nebraska)
Kelly Whiteside (professor in Sports Media and Journalism, Montclair State University; longtime sportswriter, USA Today, Sports Illustrated and Newsday)
Carla Williams (athletics director, University of Virginia)
Hunter Yurachek (athletics director, University of Arkansas).

Re-alignment

• SEC: Added Texas and Oklahoma.
• Big Ten: The 18-team league added Oregon, USC, UCLA and Washington.
• Big 12: The 16-team league now includes Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah.
• ACC: The league goes coast-to-coast after adding Cal and Stanford, along with SMU.
• Pac-12: All that’s left are Oregon State and Washington State.
• Army has joined the American Athletic Conference. However, the Army-Navy game will remain a non-conference game.

Television

• The SEC game of the week is no longer on CBS, those games will now be seen on ESPN and ABC.
• The Big Ten will have three national windows with a game on Fox at 11 a.m. CT), CBS at 2:30 p.m., and NBC for a prime time game.
• Fox is breaking the unwritten rule of leaving high school football along on Friday nights and will broadcast a national game.
• The remaining teams in the Pac-12 have a broadcast deal with The CW, and the Mountain West will have games on truTV.

Saban beiung on College GameDay is great for fans in gneral in that everyhone else gets to hear many of the stories he's been telling in Tuscaloosa since 2007. Another major plus for fans is that kickoff times for most games will be announced well in advance, unlike previous seasons.

Rule changes

• The two-minute warning has been added to college football, during the second and fourth quarters, just like in the NFL.
• Teams have the option to use coach-to-player communications through the helmet to one player on the field. That player will be identified by having a green dot on the back midline of the player's helmet. The communication will be cut off when the play clock reaches 15 seconds or at the snap, whichever comes first.
• Coaches will be allowed to conduct broadcast TV interviews at the end of the first and third quarters of games.
• Video tablets will be allowed on the sideline. Video may include coach's sideline, coach's end zone, and a program feed per play from the current game only and may also display "game circumstances," including down / distance, time, quarter, play-number and score. A team may have up to 18 standard tablets active,
• Horse-collar tackles that occur within the tackle box will be penalized as a 15-yard personal foul penalty. Previously, a horse-collar tackle within the tackle box is not a foul.

Also, the limit on the number of coaches who can do hands-on, on-field coaching during practice and games has been lifted. Previously, only the 10 assistant coaches were allowed (analysts, etc, were banned).

No more divisions

The one exception is the Sun Belt, which still has an East and West Division. Meanwhile, the SEC recently announced the following tiebreakers:
1. Head-to-head competition among the tied teams.
2.    Record versus all common conference opponents among the tied teams.
3.    Record against highest-placed common conference opponent in the conference standings, and proceeding through the conference standings among the tied teams.
4.    Cumulative conference winning percentage of all conference opponents among the tied teams.
5.    Capped relative total scoring margin versus all conference opponents among the tied teams.
6.    Random draw of the tied teams.