The Alabama Crimson Tide are currently 5-1 and ranked No. 7 in the AP poll in Kalen DeBoer's first season as head coach, so it's hard to say that anything is necessarily "wrong" with this team. On paper, things are just fine, even with the one loss. It's not like Bama never lost any games under Nick Saban. And yet, if you spend enough time in their corner of the internet, you'd think the sky is falling. After a big, tenure-defining win against Kirby Smart's Georgia, DeBoer's Tide blew it against Vanderbilt, the punching bag of the SEC. How bad was the loss? Beyond the fact that it was Vandy's first win against a top-five team in their history, there was the added bonus that it was a top-to-bottom beating in which the Tide never held a lead all game.
It was a bad loss for a program of Alabama's stature, made worse by the fact that it was followed up with another stinker in South Carolina. Alabama edged an unranked Gamecocks team by just two points, and looked vulnerable the whole game. In fact, the Tide have spent a lot of time looking vulnerable this year: They spent three quarters struggling against USF before finally pulling away late in the fourth, and even their big win against Georgia featured a heroic second-half comeback by the Bulldogs that turned what should have been a triumphant blowout into an escape.
This has all raised natural questions about DeBoer's capability to handle the SEC's biggest diamond. Former players are questioning the team's discipline. Paul Finebaum is calling his team "a mess" and mocking DeBoer whenever he can. Finebaum's callers are losing trust in the regime already. And everyone else is being reminded of why coaching Alabama is the most miserable job in college football.
The history of Alabama football is one of good coaches being flattened by the unrealistic expectations of a program that only tolerates greatness. Ray Perkins was good; he won games and got to bowls. Not good enough. Bill Curry was good, but he couldn't beat Auburn. Not good enough. Nick Saban, the prickly grandfather currently bemoaning the changing landscape of college football and dying a little bit inside every time he's forced to sit next to Pat McAfee, was the king of kings. It wasn't just that Saban's teams won constantly, or that they were in the running for a championship nearly every year he coached. It wasn't even that Saban's teams never lost—they often gave one away or lost in a playoff round or championship game. It's that they were always the best team on the field, regardless of the score. They were tough. Disciplined. Focused, and dedicated to their role. In the spirit of Bill Belichick, Saban's players did their jobs, to maximum capability. Beating them usually required a whole lot of trickery. Or a quarterback going nuts. Or a Kick Six.
To DeBoer's critics' point, the team does look a lot less disciplined this year. DeBoer was not hired to be a disciplinarian, though. He was brought in to guide Alabama into the new era of college football, where players are finally wielding some power in the market. A lot of Bama's dip in form can be chalked up to other teams using NIL and the transfer portal to help level the field, as evidenced by a wonky first half of the season in which it's unclear if any teams are truly great (except for Texas). DeBoer wasn't hired to be a domineering presence or lock in top recruiting classes through the sheer strength of his aura, but to help Alabama figure out how to stay at the top in a world where players are starting to enjoy some agency.
Transformations take time and patience, though, and the trick with coaching Bama is that patience is almost never afforded. The Bama job is one that chews great coaches up and spits them out. To call it thankless is an understatement. There is little to no upside; even if you win you'll be met with expectations to continue winning. Eventually you will fail and be discarded, or run away to get a job doing commentary on ESPN.
For all of the team's problems, DeBoer has turned Jalen Milroe into one of the best QBs in college football, which did not seem to be his trajectory under Saban. The offense is flawed but more inventive, and they've got one of the best receivers in the nation in Ryan Williams, who is only 17 years old. But the team is heavily penalized, easily flustered, and making things harder for themselves. There's a real chance this team will lose one or two more games this season, but even still, they could make the 12-team playoff anyway. That would be a blessing and a curse, because the only thing guaranteed to get the spoiled Bama fanbase more upset than a loss in October is an early playoff exit.
