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HawgBeat continues its summer preview series on Arkansas’ 2019 football opponents with a closer look at Alabama. The Razorbacks travel to Tuscaloosa, Ala., to play the Crimson Tide on Oct. 26. The kickoff time and television information for this game have yet to be announced.
2018 record: 14-1 (8-0 SEC)
To say the Crimson Tide cruised through the regular season would be an understatement. They won all of their games by an average margin of five touchdowns and led them by an average of 24.3 points at halftime. The only time Alabama didn’t lead through two quarters was, believe it or not, against The Citadel and that was a tie game it eventually won by 33 points. Things got much more difficult in the postseason, as it needed a dramatic comeback to beat Georgia in the SEC Championship game and had to hold off an Oklahoma rally in the College Football Playoffs. The lone loss came in the national championship game and it wasn’t even close. Clemson scored 30 straight points to knock off the Tide 44-16.
Head coach: Nick Saban (13th season)
The only question up for debate now is whether or not Saban has done enough to earn the title of “best ever.” His six national titles - one at LSU and five at Alabama - are tied with Bear Bryant for the most during the poll era, plus he’s won eight SEC titles and has a 232-63-1 overall record. What he’s built with the Crimson Tide has been nothing short of incredible, as they’ve won at least 10 games in 11 straight seasons. During that span, they’ve lost more than one SEC game just once and that was in 2010. In the eight years since then, Alabama is 103-10 overall and 58-6 in conference play.
Key Returners
~QB Tua Tagovailoa: Heisman Trophy runner up… 2018 Maxwell Award and Walter Camp Award winner… Consensus first-team All-American, first-team All-SEC… AP SEC Offensive Player of the Year… Completed 69.0 percent of his passes for 3,966 yards, 43 TD and 6 INT last season… Passer rating of 199.4 was a single-season NCAA record… Also rushed for 5 TD… Completed 10 of 13 passes for 334 yards and four TD against Arkansas
