Almost no one in the college football world believes Louisville will seriously challenge Alabama football. Even with the game predicted to be one-sided, the Crimson Tide will challenge itself to play up to a standard.
For the Tide, the Louisville game might be best considered an opportunity to continue a work-in-progress. Alabama football has an unusually high number of unknowns going into the 2018 season. To the extent those unknowns become deficiencies, those deficiencies will not be cured in one game.
There are three unknown areas where inexperience suggests results will be below the high Crimson Tide standard.