Alabama Crimson Tide football coach Kalen DeBoer has already done enough damage in his 14 games in charge that many have already written off his future in Tuscaloosa. Most aren’t wasting time imagining it.
Most, whether current or former players, feel the culture is lacking. Energy isn’t there on the field. Excitement is absent on the sidelines.
104.5 ESPN Baton Rouge’s Chris Marler relayed that, as a result, DeBoer is just “probably not the guy” for the Crimson Tide – and that the bad outweighs the good at his point after a disastrous 31-17 Week 1 loss to the Florida State Seminoles that exposed the fall of the “Bama Standard.”
“It took one week for everything to fall apart in Tuscaloosa. He followed up what many thought would be the first of many huge wins as Alabama’s head coach with the program’s first loss in 40 years to Vanderbilt. Since then, he hasn’t looked back. Or maybe forward is the better phrasing? Or game tape at the very least,” Marler wrote.
“Alabama is just 5-5 in the ten games since. He’s 1-3 in his last four. And it’s become more and more evident that Kalen DeBoer is probably not the guy for Alabama. Sure, there’s a lot of good on that resumé. He’s 15-3 against Top 25 teams which is the best in the country and 7-0 against Steve Sarkisian, Dan Lanning, Brian Kelly, and Kirby Smart.
“But the bad outweighs the good.”
The Crimson Tide has a tune-up game against the ULM Warhawks before facing the Wisconsin Badgers in an early make-or-break matchup. After that, Alabama heads between the hedges to face the Georgia Bulldogs in Athens.
DeBoer cannot lose two of the next three games. AD Greg Byrne might feel so much of a backlash at that point that he’d pay the $70 million to get rid of DeBoer as soon as possible. If he isn’t shown the door himself, of course.
That there are already conversations like this so soon after Nick Saban’s retirement shows DeBoer is, in fact, probably not the guy.