O’Gara: My hope for Kalen DeBoer’s debut? Pageantry, and a whole lot of … passing
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It’s been 18 years since someone other than Nick Saban led the Tide out of the Bryant-Denny Stadium tunnel for a season-opening game.
That in itself will be the strangest of strange firsts in the Kalen DeBoer era. It’s still surreal to see Saban on ESPN while DeBoer is the one tasked with steering the high-speed locomotive that is Alabama football. There’ll be more pageantry that comes with that, probably via some sort of pregame hype/tribute video that honors Saban while spinning it forward to DeBoer. At some point, the ovation will stop, the ball will be kicked and Alabama will be held to the Alabama standard. When that happens, my mindset will shift to a different thought.
A’ight, now throw the damn ball.
Wait, what? Against Western Kentucky? Can’t Alabama win by 4 touchdowns with running nothing but QB draws? Probably. I wouldn’t bet against Jalen Milroe’s legs running behind that Tide interior offensive line on most nights. I especially wouldn’t bet against that unit when it’s a 31-point favorite via DraftKings Sportsbook against a Conference-USA team that finished No. 93 in scoring defense.
But yes, throw the damn ball, DeBoer.
Those reps matter. Yeah, I know that Nick Sheridan will be the one calling plays. It’s still DeBoer’s offense that’ll be game-planning. His approach will be evident. Hence, his identity should be evident.
That’s not to say that Alabama should follow the 2022-23 Washington script against Western Kentucky or against anyone. It should, however, try to work out some of those transitional kinks in the passing game to prepare for what’s ahead. Now is the time to do that for an Alabama offense that’ll face elite defensive minds Luke Fickell and Kirby Smart in September alone.
It’s great that DeBoer has been heaping praise on Milroe throughout the offseason. That beats the heck out of the alternative, which is what the 2023 offseason felt like. But until we see Milroe execute the DeBoer offense in the regular season, we can’t assume that transition will be seamless.
For what it’s worth, I say that as someone who predicted that Milroe will win the Heisman Trophy. That’s faith that DeBoer will continue to develop Milroe and build his offense to fit Alabama’s personnel, which will improve in some all-important areas. One of those is the intermediate passing game. That’s well documented. How much of that was the Bill O’Brien/Tommy Rees scheming compared to Milroe’s accuracy without receivers who consistently got separation in those areas? That’s debatable. It’s also somewhat irrelevant now.
Related: Looking to place a bet on the 2024 Heisman Trophy? SDS has you covered with all the latest odds!
More important for 2024 is that Milroe can execute all of DeBoer’s offense. That doesn’t mean throwing the kitchen sink at Western Kentucky. But does that mean we see him get 15-20 pass attempts in the first half? It could. Assuming those passes don’t coincide with some 2023 USF-like first half, it’d be nice to see what that looks like both on a drive where Alabama stays on schedule and when the Tide need to pick up 3rd-and 12-and the running lanes aren’t available for Milroe.
We know Milroe can move the chains in those spots. We don’t know if he can trust the new scheme, trust the new receivers to execute the route concepts and if he can trust the 2024 version of himself to make an on-target throw to pick up a first down.
Last year on 3rd-and-7 or longer, Milroe completed 27-of-42 passes, and he picked up 20 first downs with his arm. On 3rd-and-10 or longer, Milroe led all FBS players (not just QBs) with 7 runs of 10 yards. New offense or not, his mobility always is a weapon.
Progress in the opener would be seeing 3rd-and-long situations in which Milroe fields a clean snap (not a given last year), works to his second or third progression and has confidence to step into a throw that gives his target a chance. Those are the things that Milroe will be tasked with doing in the DeBoer offense. It doesn’t mean he needs to look like the surgical Michael Penix Jr. from the jump, but there’s a reason DeBoer earned a chance to play for a national title. He found the right ways to tweak Penix’s game to make it work with Washington’s personnel.
Milroe might have a different path with DeBoer because he’s a different player than Penix, but the ultimate goal is still the same — become the best version of yourself.
It’s not fair to expect Milroe to become the best version of himself in DeBoer’s debut. He wasn’t the best version of himself in 2023 until the latter half of the season, which included handing Georgia its first loss in 2 years. Well, check that. That was the best version of Milroe as a Year 1 starter under Rees. That ceiling should be elevated in Year 2 as a starter and Year 1 with an elite offensive mind like DeBoer.
Avoiding any sort of post-Saban era regression in 2024 is dependent on Milroe and DeBoer being the best versions of themselves. As weird as it’ll be not to see Saban take the field, there should be comfort in knowing that Milroe could’ve transferred, but he stayed to usher in the start of the DeBoer era. If that means some ups and downs await the passing game early on, so be it.
Awkward or not, taking that first step in the DeBoer era means a new mantra should be present as Alabama gets its feet wet on Saturday night.
Throw the damn ball.
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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.
