By Rock Westfall
In my Sunday column, after the Vanderbilt Commodores scored the upset of the millennium over the Alabama Crimson Tide, I summarized the difference between Nick Saban and Kalen DeBoer as Saban never lost to Vanderbilt, and DeBoer just did. It is that simple yet that monumental.
Since Saturday’s shocker, there have been comparisons to when Saban lost to Louisiana Monroe in his first season as head coach of the Crimson Tide. That argument carries no weight because Saban was in the first year of rebuilding a gutted-out program. By contrast, DeBoer inherited an established superpower.
SEC Network host and commentator Paul Finebaum has had much to say about DeBoer’s debacle. He agreed with my column regarding the Vanderbilt game related to Saban and DeBoer. Finebaum still believes that the Crimson Tide will make the College Football Playoff. But he concedes that the loss to Vanderbilt will cause a crisis of confidence for some fans that may never completely heal.
A Natural Overreaction And a College Football Playoff
On the McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning program, Finebaum said the reaction to Alabama’s loss is understandable.
“Yeah, there is tremendous overreaction and that’s natural,” Finebaum said. “But what people are going to focus on now isn’t what happened a week ago and what happened Saturday, it’s the last six quarters defensively, which has been atrocious. And he [DeBoer] is capable, he’s the same coach he was a week ago beating Georgia.”
Finebaum was realistic about the big picture in regard to the Alabama loss and its CFP prospects.
“I don’t think this game is going to matter that much in the new world order that we live in,” Finebaum added. “It’s simply a matter of making the math work to get to the playoffs, and if Alabama gets to the playoffs, this game will fade. It will be one of those asterisks that we talk about in past tense..”
Finebaum confirmed that DeBoer was worried about a letdown after the epic win over Georgia in the previous game.
“I talked to Kalen DeBoer on Wednesday, and he was trying to move on from the Georgia game. The problem was it was impossible to move on Greg. And is that the reason they played so poorly? Is that the reason that it looked like Vanderbilt was the more physical team?”
Sunday on SportsCenter, Finebaum made the Saban comparison.
"Saban would have never lost a game like that."
Frustration Mounts for DeBoer – But Hot Seat After 5 Games?
Kalen DeBoer has experienced two of the most extreme coaching emotions imaginable within a one-week span. Following the epic win over Georgia, all doubts were removed on DeBoer. But one week later, there is social media posts and talk show speculation about DeBoer being on the hot seat after the humiliating loss at Vanderbilt.
DeBoer signed an eight-year contract at an average of $10.875 million per season, so hot-seat talk is absurd. His contract is 90 percent guaranteed if he were to be fired without cause, and there is no mitigation.
Instead of the hot seat, DeBoer has to deal with a significant loss in quality of life in Tuscaloosa. The only way to change that is to win games, starting this week against the South Carolina Gamecocks.
DeBoer admitted frustration at the loss but has resolved not to allow his team to blow its cool. Instead he prefers his team joins him in staying focused.
"I'm extremely frustrated. We all are. We're not going to lose our cool over that. We all understand what happened. I saw extreme frustration. I saw guys wanting to stick together, wanting to do something special, believing in each other, expressing that. I had my part in there, too, where we understood what happened and that it's not up to our standard and how we had to proceed forward."
Alabama fans, like Florida with Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer, were spoiled rotten by Saban. Many fans were hoping DeBoer would blow a gasket on the sideline at Vanderbilt like Saban used to. That is one of the changes Crimson Tide fans will have to accept. DeBoer is not as inclined to go ballistic as Saban was.
As I detailed on Sunday, Kalen DeBoer is not Nick Saban by his demeanor, management style and techniques, nor by his results against Vanderbilt.
Welcome to your new reality, Alabama.
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