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What was that? Listless Alabama embarrasses itself in ReliaQuest Bowl loss to Michigan
By David Wasson
Published:
There should have been a police report filed Tuesday afternoon in Tampa, charging fraud and impersonation of a recently proud college football program.
Oh sure, that looked like the Alabama Crimson Tide out there in the ReliaQuest Bowl against Michigan. Same crimson helmets with the numerals on the side. Same brilliant white road uniforms. But that couldn’t have been the same Tide that at one point in 2024 was the No. 1 team in America, and certainly wasn’t the same Tide that came within a whisker of playing for a national championship back in January.
Instead, it was pretenders and frauds purporting to be Alabama. This wasn’t the Death Star dynasty Nick Saban built and cultivated via weekly doses of Joyless Murderball. This was what inevitably happens when a legend moves on – and standards become simply buzzwords instead of reality.
And the result? It felt almost criminal – as Michigan took advantage of Tide malaise and incompetence for a full 60 minutes en route a 19-13 victory at Raymond James Stadium.
Look, we really should have seen this coming. Alabama wasn’t exactly carrying a reputation for resiliency coming into the ReliaQuest Bowl – having lost for the first time in 4 decades to Vanderbilt, falling short to Tennessee and embarrassing itself on the road against a mediocre Oklahoma squad.
And there is no doubt that Michigan wanted Tuesday’s victory more than Alabama. Sure, the Wolverines (8-5) took a huge downturn from last year’s national championship run and struggled through the Big Ten in 2024, but when you combine the ReliaQuest W with Michigan’s stunning regular-season finale victory at Ohio State, it is impossible to argue against the trend rookie coach Sherrone Moore has established in Ann Arbor.
Alabama, on the other hand, is tanking faster than a penny stock in a bear market. Kalen DeBoer, who was tasked with a Herculean task in replacing Saban, seemingly infused only regression into the 9-4 Crimson Tide. The offense was only offensive when it mattered, the defense couldn’t defend at several key moments, and even the most hopeful of Crimson Tide fans had to have been staring at each other departing Raymond James Stadium truly wondering if DeBoer is the answer.
And even when Alabama rolled out stars like Jalen Milroe (who was probably playing his final game in crimson and white) and scintillating freshman Ryan Williams on offense Tuesday, Michigan’s collection of underwhelming defensive talent felt a half-step faster almost all afternoon.
For its first 22 plays against Michigan, Alabama mustered a grand total of 2 yards. That’s 6 feet, or 72 inches for those of you looking for the most precise measurement. In that same span, the Crimson Tide coughed up the football 3 times – resulting in a pair of field goals and a short-field touchdown and a 16-0 deficit by the end of the first quarter.
It would be convenient for Alabama to assign that disaster to a sudden, hard rain shower that lasted about 20 minutes. Problem with that is that Michigan was playing in the exact same deluge and managed to hold onto the rock. Of course, it helps to get said wet pigskin within spitting distance of the goal line and goalposts in the first place – which is precisely what the Wolverines did on all 3 of those turnover-caused possessions, needing to travel just 40 yards for those 13 points.
The last time Alabama was inside the home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, in 2023, an eerily similar rainstorm caused the Crimson Tide all kinds of headaches. That afternoon, it was South Florida – along with persistent lightning – that terrorized Alabama for 60 minutes before the better team finally prevailed.
Tuesday, almost as suddenly as it came, the rain departed and was substituted by bright sunshine. And while the Tide spent another couple possessions slipping around on the wet natural turf before Milroe and Co. changed cleats, Alabama finally started to figure it out.
A Rico Scott end-around started a 71-yard drive that Milroe capped by hitting a wide-open Robbie Ouzts at the goal line to break the seal, and the Crimson Tide adroitly went nearly the length of the field in the first half’s final 58 seconds for a Graham Nicholson field goal to cut the deficit to 16-10.
Michigan’s almost total inability to advance the ball via the forward pass – a glaring weakness that already caused Moore to cast aside offensive coordinator Kirk Campbell earlier in the month – kept the Crimson Tide in the game in the second half. It also didn’t help that Wolverines starting quarterback Davis Warren departed with a right knee injury in the 3rd quarter, giving way to the even less-capable Alex Orji.
The Warren-Orji duo combined for just 75 passing yards on 11 completions. But it also didn’t shoot the Wolverines in the foot like Milroe did to Alabama. It also helped the freshman running back Jordan Marshall rumbled for 100 yards on 23 carries as Michigan’s plodding offense held onto the football for over 38 minutes.
Not that Milroe – who at one point this season was in the Heisman Trophy conversation – was all that better. He went 16-of-32 for 192 yards, and his rushing ability was bottled up, limited to just 7 yards on 16 carries (including 5 sacks for -33 yards).
Now that Year 1 of the DeBoer Era has ground to a listless conclusion, the real change must start coming. Offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan’s rear end presumably is on the hot seat after Tuesday’s “effort,” and Alabama can now begin to formally move on from Milroe’s limited-if-occasionally-spectacular skill-set. And DeBoer must do so in the literal shadow of Saban, who is still a presence on campus in Tuscaloosa and appearing every Saturday on College GameDay.
That’s the future facing Alabama, which won 6 national titles in Saban’s era but couldn’t win a weekday bowl game in Tampa in its first season without him.
Can DeBoer engineer a second Death Star? Or is a post-Bryant winter coming?
An APSE national award-winning writer and page designer, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
