College football 2018: Biggest Achilles’ heel for every Top 25 team

1. Alabama

Achilles’ heel: Inexperience throughout defense

When talking about the Alabama Crimson Tide heading into the 2018 season, most people would likely talk about the quarterback battle being the biggest Achilles’ heel for the defending National Champions. After all, Jalen Hurts started every game for the Tide last season, but it was rising sophomore Tua Tagovailoa that came in after halftime in the title game to lead a thrilling comeback and earn the hardware.

In truth, there is a chance that the quarterback position could cause some issues for Alabama in the 2018 college football season. It’s not far-fetched to think that that head coach Nick Saban could stubbornly stick with the more experienced Hurts, despite the fact that Tagovailoa clearly offers more natural quarterback talent and upside at the position. That could, in turn, lead to the team not completely buying into what’s happening this year in Tuscaloosa

However, that scenario is largely based in hypotheticals as we don’t know who is going to be the starting quarterback for the Crimson Tide in 2018. As such, we have to look at what we know for sure when diagnosing their potential downfall. And what we do know is that this Bama team has to replace a large portion of their defense with the departures of Rashaan Evans, Shaun Dion-Hamilton, Da’Ron Payne, Tony Brown, Anthony Averett, Minkah Fitzpatrick and others.

Obviously we’re talking about the Crimson Tide here and they have a host of high-caliber athletes and players ready to fill those roles. However, those were all veteran players throughout the entire defense that have to be replaced. Even with great coaching and talent, that inexperience could be the difference between another title and falling short.