Wasson: Culture shift or impending disaster for Kalen DeBoer and Alabama?
By David Wasson
Published:
It is alarmingly easy to overreact when a sample size is pretty small, whether it be in a medical study or in matters more vital like college football. Fans and pundits alike often fly off the handle when they see one single thing they don’t like and immediately begin Chicken Little-ing like there is literally no tomorrow.
While this isn’t that, this also is the time and place to talk about a sense in culture shift with the Alabama Crimson Tide.
No, we aren’t going to harp on new coach Kalen DeBoer’s mega-casual sartorial sideline sensibilities – though come to think of it, said fashion could be a tiny sign as well. But there are more and more indications that the Crimson Tide are quickly no longer becoming the purveyors of Joyless Murderball that made Nick Saban beloved in Alabama and reviled in the country’s other 49 states.
Look, Vanderbilt was bound to scratch off its lucky Lotto numbers someday and erase a lifetime of futility against a No. 1 team. And Saturday afternoon wasn’t the first time (nor will it be the last …) that the Tide will crumble to the Commodores. But still … what we are seeing on the edges in and around Alabama’s 40-35 shocker tells us DeBoer ain’t no Saban.
Exhibit A: This actually came during the preseason. Heisman hopeful Jalen Milroe recounted a story one day about a moment at practice – the quarterback throwing a touchdown pass and just getting back to work with the next play, while DeBoer counseled him to enjoy the process and celebrate practice throws.
What? Practice?!? Let’s examine the phrase Joyless Murderball, shall we? There is NO joy to be associated with the process of doing your job well, especially at practice. Should we all be wearing friendship bracelets and comparing our favorite Taylor Swift lyrics, too? Football was not designed for the participants’ amusement, at least not from Saban’s perspective, and Alabama doled out a ton of championship rings abiding by that philosophy.
Exhibit B: DeBoer’s 4th-quarter sideline interview with the SEC Network’s Alyssa Lang on Saturday felt more like DeBoer detailing his grocery list than an impending disaster vs. the Commodores. We aren’t saying Saban would have blown a full-on gasket at Lang, a’ight, but odds are he wouldn’t have been cool as a cucumber, either.
How about a smidge of fire, coach? How about, I don’t know, a spiked headset or an ass-chewing or something to tell us that the intensity that made Alabama, well, ALABAMA the past 15 years hasn’t dissolved in the past 9 months?
Exhibit C: Malachi Moore pitched a preschool temper-tantrum at the tail end of the upset – slamming Vandy quarterback Diego Pavia’s head into the turf after the whistle, exploding on his teammates and then ultimately drawing an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for kicking the ball after it had been spotted.
https://twitter.com/ChrisVannini/status/1843098189823660090
“I can tell y’all what would have happened in the days that I was there,” former Tide running back Damien Harris said the next day on the “Until Saturday” podcast.
“We would have tried to rip that C off his jersey. We would have lit him up. From every coach to every player… everybody would have been on this dude’s head. We don’t do that. If we go out and get beat, we will handle all of our issues internally. You don’t get to act like that.”
A 2-time national champion under Saban, Harris wasn’t even close to done, either, about Moore’s fool-acting.
“Let me tell you exactly why he feels like he can act like that. Go and look at what DeBoer said in his postgame press conference. ‘Oh, well, you know he is one our guys and one of our leaders. We expect him to use this and only bring positivity.’ You think Nick Saban would have said that? No! That’s bull—-.
“That doesn’t help you win games, and help you control the talent and the level of guys you’ve never coached before or ever had experience with. You don’t know what it takes to win these kinds of games, and you just try to be everyone’s buddy-buddy. What does that get you? It gets you beat by Vandy on the road.”
These are symptoms, y’all. While I’m not totally prepared to subscribe to the “Alabama hired the wrong guy” philosophy by a fair piece, they certainly aren’t good, either.
What the above exhibits tell me, without knowing anything else for certain about the inner workings of the 2024 Alabama Crimson Tide, is that whatever relentless pursuit of perfection that drove Saban to greatness is gone. Everyone who couldn’t hang back then either quickly learned the right way to do things or found a new home — a mentality that now appears to be fraying like the old carpet in the Mal Moore Building.
Vanderbilt wasn’t a trap game for the Crimson Tide. Vanderbilt wasn’t a once-in-a-lifetime fluke. What Vanderbilt illustrated, I believe, is the very beginnings of a substantive culture shift within the Alabama program. Right, wrong, or somewhere in the vast expanse of in between, that culture shift under DeBoer is slowly playing out in front of our eyes.
Can Alabama survive this culture shift – still finding a way to dominate the SEC and the nation while simultaneously going from domineering to docile? Is kind and gentle the way to win in the NIL/transfer portal era where everyone has their hand out and loyalty is a relic of a bygone day?
Or is Kalen DeBoer simply in over his head, and we are just seeing the first glimpses of it?
An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, 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.
