TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — If No. 8 Alabama is going to return to the College Football Playoff, the Crimson Tide will need to play better away from home.

It starts Saturday at rebuilding Florida State .

The Tide, which lost four times outside Tuscaloosa in 2024 and failed to reach the CFP, gets an early chance to prove last season's road woes were more of a fluke than a foreshadowing under second-year head coach Kalen DeBoer.

“You got to start fast,” DeBoer said. “You dig yourself a hole on the road, it gets hard. The crowd gets behind the home team."

Alabama dropped road games to Vanderbilt, Tennessee and Oklahoma last year and then lost to Michigan in a bowl game in Tampa, Florida. Those setbacks left the Tide at 9-4 and snapped the program's 16-year run with double-digit victories.

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