Jam Miller drops the gauntlet with incredibly bold prediction Alabama football season

It is the dawn of a new era in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The Alabama Crimson Tide should still be one of the better teams in the SEC this season, but they will be playing for a new head coach this year in Kalen DeBoer. The former Washington Huskies head coach came over after losing the national title in the wake of Nick Saban retiring. DeBoer did get Washington one game further than Alabama last year.

But even with that in mind, Alabama is not going 12-0 in conference play this year. The Crimson Tide are a borderline College Football Playoff team, one that I am right on the fence about on if they are getting in or are they missing out. That still does not change the fact that running back Jam Miller may have put his foot in his mouth by asking for the rest of the SEC to give Alabama its best shot.

He made this comment after practice last week. Man, did he drop the gauntlet to welcome the duels.

“Last year and this year, we were great overall. We’re gonna dominate this year and win it all.”

Here is a the accompanying video of Miller speaking to Bama Online after Wednesday's practice.

This is not quite on Jalen Ramsey's 2017 Jacksonville Jaguars level of 'We're gonna go to the Super Bowl, and we're gonna with that b***h!" after beating the Pittsburgh Steelers in the divisional round, only to fall on the road in Foxborough to the Evil Empire despite being up at halftime. Jalen Milroe is a better quarterback than Blake Bortles, but you don't want to draw attention to yourself quite like this.

Let's discuss how outrageous of a take this really is from Miller or if there is any merit to saying this.

Jam Miller makes incredibly bold claim about Alabama's upcoming season

I keep going back on if Alabama is a playoff team or not. I will have more on this when Cody Williams and I do our SEC preview episode for False Start on Monday, but this might be closer to a 9-3 team than an 11-1 one. Alabama faces a brutal schedule with games against the likes of Georgia, LSU, Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee in SEC play, as well as a road date at Wisconsin out of the Big Ten.

Prior to really diving into it, I had Alabama in the same cluster of SEC playoff hopefuls with LSU, Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee. I ended up settling on them being the sixth-best team in the league to start the year firmly behind Georgia and Texas, while trying to keep pace with LSU, Ole Miss and Tennessee. To me, 10-2 gets them into the playoff, while 11-1 gets them to the title bout.

Ultimately, Miller's bold prediction is either going to come true or blow up in his face entirely. No, I am not going to rule out Alabama from being a playoff contender, but there are levels to this. I have a hard time seeing Alabama getting a top-four seed. If the Crimson Tide make the playoff, it will probably be as a No. 5 to No. 12 seed, meaning they should be playing in the first round on some college campus.

The SEC might get five teams into the expanded playoff year one, but will Alabama be one of them?