Way-too-early Top 25 projections for 2021 college football season

Alabama concluded the 2020 college football season with a national championship, routing Ohio State in the title game after stomping Notre Dame in the semifinals. The Crimson Tide ended the year as the only undefeated team among 127 FBS schools that played football, and ensured that they would head into the offseason as undisputed national champions. In similar fashion, they will enter the new year as the top team in the AP Top 25 next August despite all the losses from their championship roster.

Gone are three players who factored in the 2020 Heisman race — winning receiver DeVonta Smith, third-place quarterback Mac Jones, and fifth-place running back Najee Harris. A veteran defense is also going to shed talent, though no team boasts more high-quality talent recruited over the past five years than the Crimson Tide. But, as with previous incarnations of Nick Saban’s Alabama teams, they should have no problem reloading instead of rebuilding.

The season opens on September 4 in a game against the Miami Hurricanes at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, while the rest of the non-conference schedule is a lean diet of Southern Miss, New Mexico State, and FCS Mercer. While Alabama has to play at Florida in 2021, the Crimson Tide avoid Georgia during the regular season — a fact which could prove critical by next December.