Alabama loss to Florida State signals 'gut-check time' for Kalen DeBoer

Kalen DeBoer entered his second season at Alabama with optimism coming off of a solid Year 1 taking over for the legendary Nick Saban. That all faded away quickly once the Crimson Tide kicked off against Florida State in Tallahassee.

Now following a 31-17 loss to the Seminoles, it feels to some as if the sky is falling in Tuscaloosa. Overrreactions are abound from fans, and one doesn’t have to look hard to find some calling for DeBoer to be gone.

College football analyst Josh Pate believes that is a preposterous stance to take, especially at this point in DeBoer’s tenure. However, he also acknowledged that DeBoer is now feeling some added pressure that wasn’t there to begin the season.

“I woke up this morning and, against my better judgment, I pulled up my Twitter account and there it was: ‘Fire Kalen DeBoer,'” Pate said on Josh Pate’s College Football Show. “First thing I saw, all caps of course. Here’s my takeaway from that. Obviously, no. That’s not the way the world works. Even if they wanted to fire him, they can’t. In no world should you be talking about firing Kalen DeBoer. However, it is serious gut-check time for him and for that program.”

Alabama fell behind as much as 24-7 early in the third quarter and Pate noted a lack of discipline from the team. It’s easy to draw comparisons to Saban’s tenure in Tuscaloosa after the coach won six national championships.

Kalen DeBoer has had plenty of success of his own, finishing runner up in the national championship at Washington in 2023 prior to taking the Alabama job. But to this point, his team’s simply haven’t had the same meticulous attention to detail that Saban’s did, in Pate’s mind.

“There are some things you just have to have,” Pate said. “Competitive character is one of them. Effort, tenacity, a killer instinct. These should be things that if you’re good enough to warrant a scholarship at Alabama and you wear that Crimson helmet, you play at a place where so many guys that exhibited those chracteristics have played before — you better have ’em. They were so bad yesterday above and beyond the obvious. They were bad at just having the baseline stuff that every team should have. They were bad at having the baseline stuff you’d take for granted when Nick Saban was still there.

“The reason it existed when Saban was there was, No. 1, that was a non-negotiable in the culture he created. But No. 2, you oughta be terrified to play that way. Not terrified of what your opponent’s gonna do. You should be terrified of what your own guys are gonna do to you behind closed doors. …I’m not sure that fear exists on that team.”

Of course, it’s difficult for anyone to live up to a legend and some growing pains were to be expected under DeBoer. A 9-4 finish in the first year wasn’t bad, but bigger things were expected this season. This was a game that the Crimson Tide were expected to win.

Pate also argued that, due to Saban’s success up until the day he retired, DeBoer found himself in a better position taking over the program. Things are still fixable at this point, but Alabama better get moving quickly.

“A lot of times, the secret reason you don’t want to take over for a legend is because the program has waned in the latter stages of that legend’s career and you’re left with inheriting a rebuild with sky-high expectations,” Pate said. “…Kalen DeBoer inherited a program that was not in need of rebuild. Especially relative to FSU post-Bowden, Penn State post-Paterno. That was not this. Nick Saban’s last game was a playoff game. Nick Saban’s last recruiting class was top five.

“Did you lose some guys in the portal? Of course you did. That’s why no one really blamed you for a mixed bag of results in Year 1. But now, two years in, especially when the vibe we got from inside that place was, ‘We love where we’re at.’ Well, I didn’t love what I saw from you in Week 1.”