For nearly two decades, the Alabama Crimson Tide was the gold standard in college football. With Nick Saban at the helm, it was safe to say that any team that wanted to win a national championship had to either be Alabama or beat Alabama.
Now, the tides are shifting and the future appears uncertain in Tuscaloosa.
Head coach Kalen DeBoer is in his first year with the Crimson Tide, being hired after a brief, yet successful, two-year stint with the Washington Huskies. While comparing him to Saban feels unfair, it’s reality.
DeBoer joined the program and had to deal with numerous players entering the transfer portal and a few commits entertaining offers from other top programs. However, he largely inherited a talented roster that had just won an SEC championship and took the eventual national champions, the Michigan Wolverines, to overtime in the Rose Bowl College Football Playoff semifinal.
Some growing pains were expected entering the season. No matter who the new Alabama coach was, he’d have to deal with the nearly impossible task of trying to fill the massive shoes left behind by the greatest college football head coach of all time.
A loss here and there was expected, but what we have seen from Alabama so far as the second half of the 2024 season gets started is surprising.
The Concerns in Tuscaloosa
On the surface, the performance of some key players and positional groups gives minor cause for concern. Quarterback Jalen Milroe has seemingly regressed since an impressive first half against the Georgia Bulldogs. The secondary hasn’t been too impressive. The defensive line is not meeting expectations.
That being said, the team has managed to overcome those woes in a few key situations and games.
Losing to Vanderbilt was one of the most shocking in-conference losses in recent history, but it seemed like something the team would be able to move past. Losing to the Tennessee Volunteers stung on another level, considering the tension between these two teams in the historic rivalry. It also exposed issues that run deeper within the program that need to be addressed before the hole they’ve dug themselves into gets even deeper.
Through a full four quarters against the Vols, Alabama had 15 penalties for a total of 115 yards. No one was expecting DeBoer to mimic Saban, but there was still hope that he’d be able to maintain some level of discipline.
While there are a plethora of examples that could be honed in on, the one that stands out the most in the team’s most recent loss was wide receiver Kendrick Law’s unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on the Tide’s penultimate offensive drive.
Though it was believed there should have been offsetting unsportsmanlike penalties, Law’s emotions got the best of him and pushed Alabama back 15 yards as the team was preparing to go for it on fourth down deep in their own territory. The team did go for it and completed a questionable screen pass that came nowhere near to reaching the first down.
It feels cliché to pose this question, likely because it is, but would something like this happen under Saban? Perhaps. Having him on the sidelines wasn’t like having some sort of spell on the team that prevented them from committing penalties.
However, I will say that Law likely would not have been on the field to possibly return the next kickoff under Saban.
It’s not just about preventing the penalties. DeBoer can’t hold his players hands out on the field. What it is about, though, is responding to a situation like that.
No, I don’t think DeBoer will be fired this season or after this season, nor should he be. This is uncharted territory for many Crimson Tide fans. A coach can have flaws and can be criticized without being immediately placed on the hot seat.
There’s a list of issues that need to be addressed with this team, but these issues can be overcome and will not render the program doomed. In fact, at the time this is being written, the Tide’s College Football Playoff hopes are still alive.
Only time will tell how the team improves or adapts. Conversely, fans could also grow impatient and frustrated if the team remains stagnant and doesn’t show a willingness to correct the course it’s currently on.