Which college football fan base places the highest expectations on its head coach? It’s arguable, but what’s not arguable is that Alabama belongs squarely in that conversation. The demand for success follows quite naturally, and understandably, from the perks of the job — a $10 million contract, unwavering administrative support, vast resources when it comes to staff and recruiting — and of course, the history of the job.
Too many statues of new coach Kalen DeBoer’s predecessors, one of them relatively new, decorate the Walk of Champions outside Bryant-Denny Stadium for there to ever be any excuses.
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That said, DeBoer has taken on the game’s most high-profile job in the most difficult possible circumstance. He’s not only replacing the most successful coach in the history of the sport in Nick Saban, he’s doing it at the most chaotic moment in the sport’s history. College Football Playoff format reform, SEC format reform, conference realignment, revenue sharing with players, and even (possibly) roster limitations have conspired to make college football a very different game at the beginning of his tenure than it was at the end of Saban’s.
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But when it comes to fan expectations, all that chaos works in DeBoer’s favor in at least one way: most of the standard barometers for success have been destroyed. He can’t be measured on winning the SEC West because the division no longer exists. Winning an SEC title is a different task now entirely, too, due to format reform and the new additions of Texas and Oklahoma. Consider that in 17 seasons, Saban compiled a record of 58-5 against four SEC West schools that don’t even appear on Alabama’s 2024 schedule (Arkansas, Texas A&M, Ole Miss and Mississippi State). It will be 2026, by which time DeBoer will be at least 16 SEC regular-season games into his Alabama career, before he faces any of those four schools.
As if that weren’t enough of a shakeup, the national championship goal now requires navigating an entirely different maze, as well.
In the CFP’s four-team playoff era, Saban’s championship teams had to win two playoff games for a total of 15 for the season. In the 12-team format that begins this year, DeBoer will have to win three or four playoff games, depending on seeding, for a total of 16 or even 17 games. With the first round of 12-team playoff action happening at campus venues in December, the challenge of winning a national crown is an entirely different beast now. Saban retired, not unwittingly, at a moment when his league and his sport were undergoing a metamorphosis.
DeBoer took over with the same understanding.
What’s not changing is that Alabama fans like national championships, and they’re not known to settle for much less. Like all coaches, DeBoer will be judged on wins and losses, but unlike all coaches, the only acceptable substitute for a national title is a program that looks like it’s trending toward the next one soon.
But the benchmarks that used to line that path for Saban will never look the same again.
And for the coach replacing him, that’s probably a good thing.
Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of Crimson Cover TV on WVUA-23. Reach him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on X.com @chasegoodbread.