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Now that Ryan Grubb is on board, let’s reset expectations for Alabama’s offense
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Ryan Grubb’s arrival in Tuscaloosa means that Alabama officially has a “no excuses” offense in 2025. Period.
Kalen DeBoer‘s 6 different stint with Grubb in the past 2 decades means that the Tide have the pairing that was originally envisioned when he signed to become Alabama’s next head coach. In addition to having Grubb calling plays, Nick Sheridan is back in his role as tight ends coach while JaMarcus Shephard will continue to serve as wide receivers coach. Basically, DeBoer has now migrated his offensive staff from Washington to Alabama (recently-fired Seahawks offensive line coach Scott Huff is the lone absence … for now).
If you recall, that Washington squad didn’t have a single returning All-Pac-12 (RIP) player on offense upon their arrival. Well, offensive lineman Jaxson Kirkland returned as an all-conference player, but DeBoer and Grubb inherited an offense that averaged 21.5 points per game and was outside the top 100 in FBS.
What did they do? Improve by 18 points per game. What did they not do? Make excuses.
Alabama’s offense enters 2025 with 1 returning All-SEC selection (Ryan Williams), and the Tide could have their worst preseason AP Top 25 ranking in 17 years.
Don’t care. No excuses.
Ah, but now is the part where you tell me that because Alabama’s quarterback situation is unproven, that should give the Tide a bit of grace as that unit figures out its identity in a post-Jalen Milroe world. Nope. Moving past the fact that Alabama’s offense didn’t have an identity during the Milroe world, let’s remember that Alabama’s quarterback room consists of Ty Simpson, AKA a former 5-star quarterback who already got a year in the system, Austin Mack, AKA the former Washington blue-chip quarterback recruit that was handpicked by DeBoer and Grubb in the class of 2022, and Keelon Russell, AKA the No. 2 overall player in the class of 2025.
Alabama has talent galore. It has elite offensive minds. Figure it out.
To be clear, that message isn’t for DeBoer. It’s obvious that based on his hiring of Grubb and demotion of Sheridan as the play-caller, he senses the urgency. That doesn’t mean he’s on the hot seat. It means in Year 2 at a job like that, you won’t get grace for being inconsistent. You’ll instead get Google searches that read “Kalen DeBoer buyout.”
(He’s guaranteed 90% of his 8-year, $87 million contract that runs through 2031, which would put his buyout just north of $60 million if he’s fired at the end of the 2025 season.)
“No excuses” doesn’t mean that a disappointing offensive season will result in DeBoer getting canned and having the entire college football world screaming, “never be the guy who replaces the legend.” We’re not going there.
But if you can’t establish your offense in Year 2 with Alabama’s resources and your dream staff, people start asking questions. Like, is he really built to be the long-term guy? Did he perhaps just have the right equation to have a special 2-year run at Washington?
At Washington, it was accepted that the DeBoer-Grubb offense had a slight Year 2 regression. Why? A 14-0 start that includes a national championship berth and a Heisman Trophy runner-up at quarterback is a sign that they did their jobs just fine. They hit a bit of a midseason snag that some wondered was the result of Michael Penix Jr. playing through injury. Whatever the case, we know what that group didn’t do.
Make excuses.
At Alabama, the expectation should now be consistently putting up 30 points against SEC competition. If you recall, Alabama only did that 4 times in 2024. The expectation should now be avoiding multi-turnover games. If you recall, multi-turnover games happened 7 times in 2024, including a 10-turnover stretch in the final 3 games. The expectation should now be establishing a reliable passing game. If you recall, Alabama didn’t have a single passing touchdown in its final 4 SEC games.
By now, you know this. You can rest assured that Grubb knew this before he even agreed to the job.
Grubb could’ve made excuses for not taking the job. Plenty of late-40s coaches would have reset after being 1-and-done in the NFL. Grubb could have taken a behind-the-scenes analyst role somewhere, or he could have traveled the country as an idle coach who’d pop up on random occasions.
Instead, he chose a path that will now have more eyes on him than ever. That includes last year with the Seattle Seahawks, where Grubb was dealt a tricky hand with an injury-depleted offense that was led by 34-year-old Geno Smith. Nobody made excuses for Grubb when he was fired at season’s end.
Even if this Alabama team endures injuries at key offensive skill-positions, it will fall on DeBoer and Grubb to navigate that. After all, it’s still a roster that recruits nothing but top-3 recruiting classes, and while we can debate how deep Alabama’s NIL pockets are for transfer portal spending, that shouldn’t be seen as an excuse for why the Tide come up short in any given season.
You could make excuses for DeBoer in 2024. It wasn’t just that he replaced the best coach of all-time. It was that he was exposed to the 1-way street that is the 30-day transfer window. And on top of that, Grubb made a last-minute decision to stay in Seattle instead of joining DeBoer at Alabama.
All of that is ancient history now. The only thing that matters is that the band is back together. If Alabama’s offense is anything short of prolific in 2025, there won’t be any excuses to give.
Period.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
