Josh Pate questions whether Kalen DeBoer can turn around tenure at Alabama

Through 14 games as the head coach in Tuscaloosa, Kalen DeBoer now finds himself on a very hot seat. It’s still very early to be talking about buyouts, but his job security has already come into some question after the start of his second season with the Crimson Tide.

Josh Pate spoke about DeBoer’s future while appearing on ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ on Monday. He was as blown away as everyone else with the 31-17 loss by No. 8 Alabama to Florida State in their opener this weekend, but Pate says DeBoer has things to worry about in the here and now with his team based on how they just played rather than whether or not he’s actually going to be fired after just two seasons with the Tide.

“I just, I don’t know where we are with them,” Pate admitted. “I mean, that’s my national championship pick. If you think Saturday was bad for ‘Bama, imagine picking them to win the title and then that gets thrown in your face.”

“Your question is, does he need to be worried about his job? Dude, he needs to be worried about the competitive character of his team,” said Pate. “Like, the fundamental competitive character being called into question? Running backs stoning your linebackers in basic run fits and can’t shed that stuff, turning down blocks in some cases, dropping balls left and right not because you just misjudged it but because you maybe turned it down over the middle of the field? That’s like non-negotiable stuff. That’s stuff you took for granted under Nick Saban. It’s stuff I take for granted, frankly, as a viewer from every major program.”

Pate noted that this is just a reality now in the sport, with more and more top teams capable of losing games and, because of that, not meeting expectations more often than they were used to. That said, after what he saw on Saturday, Pate doesn’t know what DeBoer’s status will be because he doesn’t know how low that floor could end up being for the Crimson Tide by the end of the fall.

“I think, the new reality of college football, okay, is big for big-time programs, you’re used to there being a really high floor. So, like, the worst case under Nick Saban ever was going to be nine wins…That’s what you think. That’s not the reality anymore,” said Pate. “You’re driving down the same interstate still, but there’s no guardrails, no median and its just an edge of a cliff both ways. If a tire falls off, there’s no limit to how bad it can get. Like, you think ‘Bama can’t miss a bowl game? They absolutely could miss a bowl game. Or he could get the ship righted.”

“If it doesn’t corrected? I don’t even know what the answer is. Like $70 million is not even a real number to me. That’s monopoly money. I don’t know what the answer there is. I just know that high floor is not in existence anymore, so there’s no limit to how bad it can get if that stuff doesn’t get corrected,” Pate continued. “You don’t look down the road to Georgia. You don’t look past this Saturday. I don’t care if you’re favored by five touchdowns. You don’t look past the next opponent, and we’ve just been so accustomed to being able to do that with these big-time programs. I don’t know that you can do that right now.”

After Saturday’s upset loss in Tallahassee, DeBoer is down to 9-5 overall (.643) to this point at Alabama. That includes being just 4-5 over their last nine games against power competition since the calendar turned to October last year following a 4-0 start to his time there. Four of those five have then been to unranked opponents when they themselves were in the top-ten to top-twelve. For reference, as has gone around the past two days, Nick Saban lost four games to unranked opponents during his entire respective tenure there and never lost more than three games in a season after his debut year, including just six total over his final four seasons since the start of the 2020s. That’s the standard that DeBoer is, as of now, not living up to.

Still, though, Pate isn’t out yet on DeBoer as the head coach at ‘Bama, as still sees someone who has a resumé that’d suggest he could have success there too. However, the fact of the matter is that the Tide have eleven games over three months to get this right now, and we’ll know by the end of that where he and his tenure stands.

“I had the same assumption. I still think the dude is a stud. Like, I think he’s a winner,” said Pate. “I mean, I’ve sat in that renovated office and point blank asked him – ‘Taking over for a legend. Not the stuff you say on TV. Like, we’re off the record. Just shoot with me’. That guy has got a lot of intensity. He’s got the right mentality…99-percenters aren’t qualified for the Alabama job anyways, so, by default, you have to be a one-percenter. You have to be different. You have to mentally be wired a little different. He is.”

“I’m not going to give up on them – but, hey, look, God gives us 11 more games. So, if you’re right, you’ll see it,” said Pate. “Like, they got Wisconsin coming in. They go to Georgia in less than a month. So, if that’s just a one-off, which I have suspicions about, but let’s just grant the floor to you. If it’s a one-off, we’ll find out really, really quickly.