Odds Alabama Loses 2 or More Games in 2015

Alabama never loses more than one regular-season game.

That's just not in its DNA.

It has finished 11-1 or 12-0 in six of the past seven seasons, during which time it has played in three BCS National Championship Games and three Sugar Bowls.

However, this year already feels different. The Crimson Tide lost to Ole Miss in Tuscaloosa last weekend, dropping to 2-1 for the first time under Nick Saban, and now must sweep the rest of their schedule to avoid losing multiple games.

Let's handicap their likelihood of getting there.

The Case for Alabama Winning Out

Despite last week's home loss, Alabama ranks No. 1 in the country on Football Outsiders' F/+ ratings. Those numbers still favor the Crimson Tide, on a neutral field, over any team in college football.

There's your case right there.

It's not as if Alabama is scared of anybody. It's not as if there's any team it can't beat. All it takes is better execution and fewer crippling mistakes.

Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

According to Bill Connelly of SB Nation, who recently published advanced statistical profiles for every FBS team, the Crimson Tide have been plagued by horrendously poor turnover luck. They've lost an average of 5.4 points per game based on fluky turnovers, which last year would have ranked No. 127 in the country and in 2013 would have ranked dead last.

"Obviously, when you have five turnovers in a game, it’s kind of hard to win, especially when you didn’t get any," Saban told reporters after the Ole Miss game. "We’re minus-five with turnovers this game, and that makes it a bit difficult in the second half when they have a couple of big plays that made huge differences in the game."

The good news is that turnover luck corrects itself. Connelly accounts for factors such as fumble-recovery rate and interceptions per pass breakup, both of which regress toward the mean. Statistically, Alabama should find better luck with turnovers moving forward.

It should also find better luck regarding those big plays Saban mentioned. The 73-yard touchdown pass to Cody Core featured an illegal blocker downfield (Saban has since submitted the play for review), and the 66-yard touchdown pass to Quincy Adeboyejo featured a helmet bounce so lucky even former Ole Miss quarterback Eli Manning, who is no stranger to lucky helmet catches, couldn't have claimed it deserved to go for six:

It's unbecoming to scream "fluke!" or complain about bad luck after a loss—especially in a case such as this, where that first part is patently false. The Rebels didn't beat the Crimson Tide in some fluky result; they beat them because for one night, they were the better team.

They just also happened to be the luckier one.

What happens when that luck starts to turn?

The Case Against Alabama Winning Out

The case against Alabama winning out has less to do with the Crimson Tide—again, they rank No. 1 on the F/+ ratings—than their schedule.

Here is who remains, along with their own advanced rankings:

Date	Team	F/+ Rating	F/+ Rank
9/26	vs. UL-Monroe	-27.2%	104
10/3	at Georgia	55.9%	3
10/10	vs. Arkansas	24.7%	26
10/17	at Texas A&M	36.2%	18
10/24	vs. Tennessee	27.1%	25
11/7	vs. LSU	49.9%	5
11/14	at Mississippi State	28.0%	23
11/21	vs. Charleston Southern	n/a	n/a
11/28	at Auburn	26.0%	32
	ALABAMA	71.8%	1

Alabama's seven remaining conference games include two top-five teams (Georgia and LSU), three more top-25 teams (Texas A&M, Tennessee and Mississippi State), the No. 26 team (Arkansas) and a road trip to play Auburn in the last game of the season when it should presumably look better than it does right now.

It's easy to find at least one loss on that schedule.

It's even easier considering the lack of clarity Alabama has at quarterback. Jake Coker started the first two games and looked average, Cooper Bateman replaced him against Ole Miss and looked worse than average, and then Coker came back and looked better than ever.

Butch Dill/Associated Press

What is Alabama to make of all that? Did Coker just need the jolt of being benched to step up? Can he be counted on to be "the guy"? Last time Alabama ran a quarterback battle into the season, AJ McCarron seized the reins from Phillip Sims and made Saban's choice easy.

Coker may have won the job, but nothing about this battle has been easy. The running game and defense need some help.

Odds Alabama Wins Out

Let's try to make this quantitative.

Instead of throwing a number against the board willy nilly, I'll attempt to use stats and calculate realistic odds.

I say "attempt" because the numbers don't belong to me. The two components of the F/+ ratings—the FEI ratings and the S&P+ ratings—belong to Brian Fremeau and Connelly, respectively. I do not know the formulas they use to compute their ratings, and I lack their ability to generate win probabilities for 'Bama's next nine games.

But because Fremeau and Connelly make their ratings public, I do have the ability to reverse-engineer past game projections and estimate those of Alabama. These may not be precise, but they should be close.

Here are the FEI margins between Alabama and its remaining opponents:

Date	Opponent	Bama FEI	Opp. FEI	Bama Margin
9/26	UL-Monroe	.285	-.346	+.631
10/3	Georgia	.285	.211	+.074
10/10	Arkansas	.285	.096	+.189
10/17	Texas A&M	.285	.177	+.108
10/24	Tennessee	.285	.097	+.188
11/7	LSU	.285	.199	+.086
11/14	Mississippi State	.285	.120	+.165
11/21	Charleston Southern	.285	n/a	n/a
11/28	Auburn	.285	.108	+.177

And here are the FEI win probabilities for games with similar margins in Week 4:

Bama Opp.	Margin	Similar Game	Margin	Win Prob.
vs. UL-Monroe	+.631	ULM at Alabama	+.631	99.0%
at Georgia*	+.074	UCLA at Arizona	+.111	72.6%
vs. Arkansas*	+.189	Miami (OH) at WKU	+.215	96.4%
at Texas A&M	+.108	UCLA at Arizona	+.111	72.6%
vs. Tennessee*	+.188	Tex. St. at Houston	+.142	89.6%
vs. LSU	+.086	Ark. St. at Toledo	+0.80	79.8%
at Miss. State	+.165	Boise St. at UVA	+.163	82.7%
vs. C. Southern	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a
at Auburn	+.177	TCU at Tex. Tech	+.178	85.3%

There are no suitable matches for the Georgia, Arkansas and Tennessee games (I immediately regret not taking weekly inventory of the FEI ratings), but those probabilities can be estimated using the numbers of the most similar games they fall between.

For example, the Arkansas and Tennessee games must fall somewhere between the Texas State at Houston game (89.6 percent win probability) on the low end and the Miami (Ohio) at Western Kentucky game (96.4 percent win probability) on the high end.

After adjustments, my estimated win probabilities look something like this:

Opponent	FEI Margin	Bama Win Probability
vs. UL-Monroe	+.631	99%
at Georgia	+.074	64%
vs. Arkansas	+.189	93%
at Texas A&M	+.108	71%
vs. Tennessee	+.188	93%
vs. LSU	+.086	81%
at Miss. State	+.165	82%
vs. C. Southern	n/a	99%
at Auburn	+.177	85%

Separately, those odds look pretty good. Alabama should be favored—statistically—in each of its remaining games.

But by losing to Ole Miss, Alabama surrendered its wiggle room. It no longer has any margin for error. The odds of it winning all nine of those games come out to 21.7 percent.

Those win probabilities are rough and fluid, but they're at least in the ballpark of what the numbers suggest. If you played this season five more times from here, four of those seasons would feature Alabama losing multiple games. One of them would have Alabama going 11-1.

Sounds fair to me.

Chances Alabama Loses Two or More Games: 78 percent

Odds Alabama Loses Two or More Games: 1-5

Brian Leigh covers college football for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @BLeigh35