Kalen DeBoer sends message to Alabama boosters, fans on why he can turn things around

Alabama‘s first season-opening loss in nearly a quarter-century sent Crimson Tide boosters and fans into a tailspin, so much so that many have openly criticized the state of the proud football program in its second season under head coach Kalen DeBoer.

That includes striking anonymous quotes to On3‘s Chris Low and Andy Staples in Tuesday’s biting introspective about how Alabama “power brokers and boosters are growing concerned” with how DeBoer is leading the program. It has led some to even call for DeBoer’s firing 15 games into his Crimson Tide career.

In particular, one longtime donor whose “portrait is hanging in the Donor Hall of Recognition at Bryant-Denny Stadium” didn’t mince words about his frustration: “We’re spoiled, always have been. But when we put a team out there that looks uninspired like we have far too many times these past two years and lose to teams that we’re clearly more talented than, that’s when it becomes a problem … and not just a bunch of spoiled fans griping.”

During Wednesday’s weekly SEC coaches teleconference, DeBoer responded to those concerns with a somewhat uninspiring endorsement of this year’s squad.

“My message is that our team is … I think we’ve got a really good football, I think we have a good football team that can do some big things still this year,” DeBoer said Wednesday. “But we’ve got to prove it and we’ve got go do it. To this point, it’s been just me being able to focus on football, and I appreciate that.”

Following last Saturday’s 31-17 season-opening loss at an unranked Florida State, which jumped into the Top 20 in both the AP and Coaches polls Tuesday, the Crimson Tide dropped from No. 8 to No. 20 and 21 in the Coaches and AP polls, respectively. Alabama returns to Tuscaloosa in Week 2 against Louisiana-Monroe (7:45 pm ET, Saturday).

Despite DeBoer’s ability to simply “focus on football,” many of Alabama’s biggest boosters and notable alumni such as former quarterbacks Greg McElroy and AJ McCarron have been extremely critical of the product Nick Saban‘s successor has put on the field the past two seasons.

AJ McCarron: Alabama is too ‘soft’ at the line of scrimmage, has ‘weird vibe’

Former Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron, a three-time natonal champion, didn’t hold back with his personal disgust about what he saw take place on the field Saturday in Tallahassee, and specifically called out the Crimson Tide trenches for being “soft” — a term never used to describe Alabama teams in the 17 seasons under former coach Nick Saban.

“We as a team are soft up front on both sides of the football. Absolutely dominated from an offensive line standpoint – and maybe this lights a fire under them or, hell, maybe they don’t care at all — (but Alabama was) absolutely dominated from an O-line standpoint,” McCarron said bluntly on this week’s episode of THE DYNASTY podcast. “And it wasn’t like Florida State was bringing a ton of pressure or crazy blitz schemes, packages. They were lining up in a bear front, playing man coverage sometimes, and … our guards and tackles couldn’t pass them off to save their life. And when they didn’t, they just bull rushed and we struggled with that. … Extremely soft, no nastiness up front whatsoever, just getting pushed around.”

McCarron, who was a guest on Alabama’s sideline during the FSU game, also cited the team’s general lack of excitement coming from the bench, even after the Tide’s first score to take an early 7-0 lead.

“The sideline is dead, there’s just no excitement, it was weird, I didn’t understand it,” McCarron continued. “There was a quick excitement but then it was just dead. … It was such a weird, weird vibe.”