Alabama Football 2024 Preview: Kalen DeBoer Will Keep the Tide Rolling ... Sort Of

Alabama College Football Preview 2024

2024 Alabama Football Preview
Offense | Defense | Depth Chart
Win Total, Predictions, Season Keys
CFN 2024 Preview: All 134 Teams

No, Alabama won’t be able to continue the success of the Nick Saban era, so put that out of your mind right now.

It’s also asking too much for new head coach Kalen DeBoer to keep his own success going.

He was 67-3 with three NAIA national titles at Sioux Falls. 9-3 in his one full season at Fresno State. 25-3 in two seasons at Washington with a Pac-12 title and a national title appearance.

That’s a run of 104-12 in 8.5 years as a head coach, and six of those defeats were when he tried getting Fresno State up to speed.

So as good as DeBoer has been, can he somehow keep this all going in Tuscaloosa? Nah, not like THAT.

It’s not because anything really changed with the Tide - other than losing Saban - and it isn’t because DeBoer can’t get the job done. It’s because the the last 16 seasons under Saban were freakishly impossible.

It wasn’t just the success, and the national titles, and the SEC Championships. It’s that, yeah, you can pick roughly five plays and say that Alabama almost certainly wins five more national titles if those key moments go the other way.

It's also about how close Bama kept winning and winning and winning even when it wasn’t at its best.

After rolling to the 2020 national title, the 2021 team was about as just-okay as a No. 1 College Football Playoff seed could be - we’re talking comps with ALL of the ghosts of great Saban teams past - and it still came within a Jameson Williams injury of maybe/probably pulling out the national title.

The 2022 squad was two plays - really, a Jahmyr Gibbs dropped pass - of at least getting to the CFP, and the 2023 team that lost to Texas and needed a miracle to get by Auburn probably goes on to win the national title had it slipped past Michigan in overtime.

Alabama was always there under Saban.

Try this one on for size. The 2019 team was a total disaster. It lost 46-41 to an LSU squad that might have been the greatest college football team ever, and it came within a mistake or three by backup QB Mac Jones from beating Auburn in a painful 48-45 loss to finish the regular season 10-2.

Those two losses were enough to put the Tide at 13th in the final College Football Playoff rankings. That and 2010 - when it lost to Cam Newton’s national title Auburn team 28-27 - were the two seasons out of the last 16 that Alabama wouldn’t have been in an expanded 12-team CFP.

So yeah, it’s asking too much out of DeBoer, or Saban himself, to keep that all going. HOWEVER …

That is what the expanded College Football Playoff is for.

It’s unrealistic to be in the CFP top four at the end of the regular season every year, but it’s not asking for Christmas every day to expect the University of Alabama football program to shoot for 10-2 and be one of the top 11 teams - the 12th will be a Group of Five champion - at least four out of every five years.

The talent will still be coming in, the facilities are still as first class as they get, the booster clubs are wonderful, and the transfer portal won’t be a problem once the new staff gets up to speed.

Okay, so maybe expect national title runs and greatness every year. Any coach willing to take on this gig wouldn't demand anything less.

If you're Kalen DeBoer, keeping it all rolling is why you decided to follow the greatest head coach in the history of college football.

2024 Alabama Football Preview
Offense | Defense | Depth Chart
Win Total, Predictions, Season Keys
CFN 2024 Preview: All 134 Teams