Paul Finebaum: It feels like the Nick Saban era again at Alabama under Kalen DeBoer

Kalen DeBoer was feeling the heat in the days immediately following Alabama‘s season-opening loss at Florida State. But in the seven weeks since, DeBoer and the fourth-ranked Crimson Tide have been on a roll not seen in Tuscaloosa since Nick Saban roamed the sidelines.

Since that disasterous 31-17 upset at the hands of the unranked Seminoles, Alabama (6-1, 4-0 SEC) has won six straight, the last four against SEC rivals ranked in the Top 20. That run began with a convincing 24-21 win at then-No. 5 Georgia in Week 5 and includes Saturday night’s 37-20 victory over No. 11 Tennessee for DeBoer’s first win in the Third Saturday in October rivalry series.

ESPN firebrand Paul Finebaum was onsite in Tuscaloosa this weekend along with the rest of the SEC Nation crew and came away feeling a powerful mood shift among the Crimson Tide faithful.

“Having been down there Friday and Saturday, the vibe was off the charts. It’s such a different feeling (from what it was earlier this season). It feels a little bit like the Saban era again, even though we know who’s in charge,” Finebaum said Sunday morning on The Matt Barrie Show podcast. “But for Kalen DeBoer, it’s been a transformational project. And I think Alabama is in the conversation for best team in the country. … I don’t want to mitigate the name of Nick Saban, because it’s self-explanatory, but this was the first time I’ve been in Tuscaloosa this year and I just didn’t hear Nick Saban’s name very often.

“I mean, everyone pays the proper amount of reverence and deference to him. But it was about Kalen DeBoer, it wasn’t about Saban any longer. And I really think that is fascinating. I saw DeBoer on Saturday morning very comfortable. He understands what the questions are. And I asked him on our show about something he told me in July about retraining the roster (after) they didn’t lose anybody (to the portal). And he said the residual of that was not so much having everybody back, but it’s the dividends that started to pay off after the Florida State loss. It’s like having money grow. And that experience finally came together. No, it didn’t come together on Day 1, and that Florida State loss continues to look really bad, but it just doesn’t matter any more because Alabama has found its way back.”

DeBoer and Alabama hit the road in Week 9 for a potential trap game against unranked South Carolina before back-to-back SEC home games vs. Top 15-ranked LSU and Oklahoma following a Week 10 bye. And, of course, there’s the always challenging regular season finale at Auburn to close out November.

But in the meantime, one thing has become clear to Finebaum — the Crimson Tide faithful are all-in on DeBoer.

“You know what’s really interesting just moving around Tuscaloosa over the weekend, you’d run into somebody … and there were real conversations going on about ‘What have we gotten ourselves into?’ (after the FSU loss),” Finebaum concluded. “Because there wasn’t much buy-in for Kalen DeBoer. Now it’s as close to 100-percent buy-in as I’ve seen at any moment during his tenure. So give him credit, because I don’t know many people that could’ve withstood the criticism that he took after that first weekend.”