The difficult task of trying to fit a round peg into a square hole has been placed on Kalen DeBoer, the head coach of Alabama football. It should come as no surprise that the Crimson Tide have had their worst seven-game start to a season since 2007.
The team that began the game against Georiga three weeks ago 28-0 and achieved a signature victory in DeBoer’s first season over the team that many believed had replaced Alabama as the standard of college football looked nothing like the team that lost to Tennessee in Knoxville, falling to 5-2.
After the third Saturday in October, it is evident that Alabama is no longer the standard, regardless of whether Georgia is the norm. After defeating them, the Vols supporters still flooded the field, but if LSU defeats the Crimson Tide in three weeks, I wouldn’t anticipate the same reaction in Baton Rouge.
Since defeating Alabama isn’t a major concern at the moment. It was Vanderbilt. It was accomplished by a wart-ridden Tennessee squad. Although the Tide are still in the running for the playoffs, their hopes are on life support, and the doctor is preparing to end their season. That was likely not the last defeat we’ll witness during DeBoer’s first season at the Capstone.
It is still unclear if DeBoer is the ideal person for the position; he cannot be evaluated entirely based on seven games with a club that he did not help create, with the exception of a few transfers. I continue to think DeBoer was the best choice for the program’s future and will succeed in the end. However, the sample size is sufficient to demonstrate to me that he wasn’t the best fit for this particular season. However, you recruit people for the future, not just for one season.
Although DeBoer is an offensive coach, Alabama’s offensive players don’t mesh well with his approach. Jalen Milroe is not a DeBoer quarterback, despite my admiration for him and my defense of him. At this point in his career, he is not the kind of passer that DeBoer and offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan want the offense to have.
Milroe is not a viable candidate for benching. Perhaps DeBoer would be better served by Ty Simpson, but perhaps not. The fact that two members of the coaching staff thought Milroe was the right man is no accident. However, that might be as much about keeping the locker room as it is about playing well on the field. The locker room was in near revolt last season in Tampa when Tyler Buchner started in place of Milroe against USF.
The player who offers Alabama the best opportunity to win, in my opinion, is Milroe. He’s not a quarterback like Kalen DeBoer, though. Ty Simpson might be, but I don’t know. Austin Mack, whom DeBoer and the staff brought to Alabama after recruiting him in Washington, is someone I know they really like. It’s clear that he’s not ready yet. Keelan Russell, a former SMU commit who switched to Alabama and has experienced a sharp ascent in the recruiting rankings following an incredible senior season at the top level of Texas high school football, is another incoming freshman they have high hopes for.
The story will be revealed by Alabama’s appearance under DeBoer once he gets his staff in place. Although we won’t see that next year, 2026 will be a crucial year for him and Byrne to determine whether or not this will succeed.
And I’m not defending DeBoer; he should be held accountable for a football team that lacks discipline and is unable to move out of its own way. However, the truth is that this is nothing new; during the past few seasons, Alabama has been among the most penalized teams in the nation. Even much people don’t want to think about it now, the previous Saban teams also displayed this lack of discipline.
A post-Saban Alabama lacked a true succession strategy. There were no long-time coordinators who could take over and maintain the roster together, which might have stopped players like Caleb Downs from moving. However, Saban’s final season was overseen by two rookie coordinators. His two most successful men, Steve Sarkisian and Kirby Smart, are already coaching elite programs and have no desire to make a lateral move to Tuscaloosa.
If Jeremy Pruitt hadn’t accepted a disastrous Tennessee position after the 2017 season, perhaps he could have been that person. As Knoxville’s head coach, Pruitt appeared to be in over his head, but perhaps seven more years of experience would have made the difference.
Now, none of that matters. We are in our current location. The head coach is DeBoer. Even if he was a little less experienced than anyone wanted to acknowledge when he was hired, he has shown himself to be an excellent one. Before accepting the Washington position, he spent time at Fresno State and subsequently at lower divisions, and this is only his third season as a power-four football coach.
While attempting to adapt his style to a team that was acquired for a different purpose, he is still learning on the job. He is becoming aware of how difficult it is to succeed in this league, and he will not sit back and be satisfied with his first-year performance.
Keeping a roster interested when none of them have lost at this level will be his biggest challenge going forward. Before the calendar turned to November, no Alabama team had dropped a second game in the previous 17 years. How is the team going to react to that? Can he keep them fighting and involved? Or, like Jeheim Oatis did after Vanderbilt’s defeat, would more players start to opt out and leave the team?
Nothing is ever quite definite in college football these days. However, it’s obvious that this change won’t go as smoothly as most of us had hoped.