Greg McElroy takes issue with Kalen DeBoer’s ranking in ESPN’s top coaches list
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Greg McElroy still bleeds crimson and white, but this take didn’t have anything to do with his past as a national championship-winning quarterback at Alabama.
The guy who led the Crimson Tide to the 2009 national title, kick-starting the Nick Saban dynasty in Tuscaloosa, is now a veteran college football analyst. He has widespread opinions on everything within the sport, but this particular one just happened to be centered around the man who replaced Saban as Alabama head coach in 2024.
It’s Kalen DeBoer, who’s entering a crucial Year 3 of his tenure at Bama, and in ESPN’s ranking of the top coaches in college football that was revealed on Thursday morning, McElroy doesn’t believe DeBoer is getting a fair shake. ESPN’s list of the elite coaches had DeBoer tied for 10th with Miami‘s Mario Cristobal, which isn’t horrible by any means.
It just didn’t sit entirely well with McElroy, who pointed out in his rant on the subject Friday during the McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning show that DeBoer has a winning reocrd against some of the coaches that ESPN ranked ahead of him.
There were 5 SEC coaches on ESPN’s list, led by Georgia head man Kirby Smart being all the way up at No. 2, so DeBoer was in good company as he tries to lead the Tide back to glory in 2026. It’s not like DeBoer’s name didn’t appear on the list entirely, despite some critics who point to a 20-8 combined record during his first 2 seasons in Tuscaloosa as not being quite up to the standards that Alabama is used to.
McElroy knows those top-of-the-line standards better than most, because he lived and breathed it at Bama. And he’s a big believer that DeBoer is one of America’s best coaches and certainly was worthy of a higher spot on the ESPN list than he received.
DeBoer got Alabama back to the College Football Playoff last season after a 1-year absence, and he’ll be trying to get the Crimson Tide there again this fall in Year 3 of his tenure in Tuscaloosa. Here is what the Kalshi market is currently saying about the odds for Bama and the other top teams to be playing for a shot at the national title in December:
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
