ESPN's Pete Thamel claims Kalen DeBoer's future will be known by Alabama's game against LSU

The current feel out of Tuscaloosa is that Kalen DeBoer has the remainder of this season to figure it out if his tenure is to even continue at Alabama. However, ESPN’s Pete Thamel thinks we may already know by the start of November if he’s going to keep being the head coach of the Crimson Tide.

Thamel discussed DeBoer’s future with Dan Wetzel on the ‘College GameDay Podcast’ on Monday, coming off the Tide’s upset loss to open the season this weekend at Florida State. He began by at least noting the difficulty of the job following their time under Nick Saban.

“Look, like, Nick Saban built that thing to an impossible level of emotionless dominance, right. It was just this assembly line of five-stars,” said Thamel. “Living up to that was always going to be, you know, difficult.”

That said, DeBoer being 9-5 overall to this point already has him on a hot seat, especially after Saturday’s loss in Tallahassee. So, based on the schedule, Thamel expects we’ll have some sense of where their thought process is coming out of their second bye week and once they play LSU on November 8th. That’s as he knows some people would be fine with him being fired already on September 2nd or after that first game happened on August 30th.

“I think – I’ll say this. By the time they play LSU? They have a bye after South Carolina on October 25th. By the time they play LSU on November 8th, I think we’ll know,” said Thamel. “Like, there’s some signs now, you know, where this thing is going.”

However, Thamel sees two reasons why this won’t eventually play out this way in Alabama firing DeBoer after just two seasons. The first is his buyout, which would be the second-biggest ever paid out in the sport, if they did decide to move on from him, which he doesn’t think AD Greg Byrne will be just willing to do without a lot of consideration. Thamel also didn’t dismiss the idea of DeBoer avoiding that altogether by eventually choosing to leave himself if this continues to go wrong.

“It’s $63 million, somewhere in that neighborhood, to fire him, so that would be the second-biggest buyout. The biggest buyout in college football history is Jimbo at $76-whatever million, right, and then the second-biggest is Gus Malzahn at Auburn at $21 million – so it would be triple the second-biggest buyout. That’s an inordinate number,” Thamel said. “You and I both know Greg Byrne. He is not, like, an emotional, reactionary guy. Like, that’s just not in his DNA.

“If this continues to not go, like, to the Alabama standard like they want, you wonder if Kalen DeBoer recognizes it’s not a fit and, you know, tries to side door somewhere, you know.”

The second reason is, less than two years after their last coaching search in going from Saban to DeBoer, Thamel doesn’t know who the Tide would even consider if they were to get back on the carousel. If they were to do it again, Thamel and Wetzel each actually thought, despite his struggles we’ve already seen at times there, DeBoer would still be a prime candidate for the job this time around.

“The notion of them firing him still, to me, is a little bit crazy at $63 million, because he is an excellent football coach. And, who are you going to go hire, right?” Thamel said. “Are you going to hire Lane Kiffin? You could. He’s a good coach. He’s been there, they know him, right? But there’s not some supremely obvious (name). Look, Jon Sumrall at Tulane is a great coach, right. Like, showed it again on Saturday. He was great at Troy. He’s been great at Tulane. Is he going to be good at Alabama right away? Like, no.”

“Kalen DeBoer is the obvious choice,” Wetzel interjected. “Kalen DeBoer is the obvious choice, and he’s recruiting really well.”

It remains to be seen what comes of this season at Alabama, as DeBoer still has three months to fix where this is at. Still, based on where things stand coming out of that opener to begin year two of his tenure, the Tide could already be thinking about new coach candidates by the first week of November, says Thamel.