After Nick Saban announced his retirement in early January of this year, many fans and analysts were worried about whether the next head coach would be able to maintain the level of consistency that Saban had maintained for 17 years.
Unfortunately, while former Washington Huskies head coach Kalen DeBoer was among the best people for the job, Alabama’s recent performances have given fans and former players reason to worry.
Can Alabama Rebound?
The Crimson Tide had an electric start to the season, with four back-to-back massive victories. However, things started to go downhill when they lost to Vanderbilt in a 40-35 game in Week 6.
The Vanderbilt upset was followed by a close 27-25 win against South Carolina in Week 7 and a shocking 24-17 loss against the Tennessee Vols in Week 8.
The Crimson Tide’s evident struggles have triggered various former players to voice their opinions on the situation, including ex-Saints RB Mark Ingram II.
While analyzing the Tennessee loss, Ingram II said, “They don’t deserve to win. They’re not playing winning football. When you give up penalties consistently — they gave up a lot of penalties at Vanderbilt. Then you go on the road at Tennessee, giving up penalties.
“You go on the road at Vandy, they run the ball down your throat and make you like it. You go on the road at Tennessee — they run the ball down your throat and make you like it. You turn the football over on offense. In the red zone, you can’t run the football on offense. You can’t stop the run on defense.
“Like, these are all things that are glaring issues for the Alabama Crimson Tide right now. And then I’ll say this: the defense played well enough to win that game. They had to get two stops toward the end of that game to get the ball back to the offense and go ahead and have a chance to win.”
Alabama Player Sparks Major Red Flags Under Kalen DeBoer’s Coaching
Coach DeBoer had the perfect résumé for the Alabama head coach job, which led people to think Nick Saban’s legacy was in safe hands after he passed the torch to the former Washington head coach.
However, fans are left having second doubts about the program’s future due to a few statements made by Alabama tight end C.J. Dippre following the Tennessee upset.
While talking about the thought process after the Week 8 loss, Dippre said, “Just little things like that carry over to the football field. Because then if you take one wrong step, one wrong thing, it just all carries over. So you got to act everything, all throughout the day. Going to class on time. Everything is like would want to do on the football field.”
The reason why this didn’t sit well with fans was because you would expect the Crimson Tide to be on time throughout the year, let alone at the peak of the season.