re: Do you think DeBoer improved not only himself but the program in year two?

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not a rebuild job by any means it's not accurate to say that DeBoer inherited a ready made title contender unless you hold him to the same coaching standard as Saban, which isn't realistic. There were a lot of recruiting misevaluations by Saban's last couple of staffs and a lot of less than stellar coordinators and position coaches that probably fricked up player development.

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I agree with much of this but its also really complicated.

With an elite passer we could've won a championship in 2023 and 2024, but there were major deficiencies at other spots. The Sayin eval was elite, unfortunately due to coaching changes it didn't help us any.

OL has been a bad position grouping since 2020 with NFL guys standing next to players who never would've started peak Saban.

RB evals dropped off although I think Haynes could've been the next one up absent his injuries and transfer.

DL has been solid this year, but its nowhere close to where we were peak Saban and that OL/DL dropoff is really whats brought us back to the pack over the last 5 years IMO.

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Sayin evaluation wasn’t a hard one.

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They still deserve credit, when we started going hard after Sayin he hadn't blown up yet and was just a small school guy from the west coast with limited film due to covid and lack of camps.

Once E11 and all of that happened it was obvious what we had, but up to that point there were a lot of people who thought he was an undersized guy playing bad competition.

Overall I am pleased with his improvement. What makes me happiest is seeing that we are not making as many bone-headed personal foul penalties (knock on wood) that extend the other teams drives and kills our momentum as we have over the past 6 or 7 years

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The pick 6 was on a slant. I cant think of a less risky pass other than a bubble screen.

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I don't think we could have avoided that one because they also committed DPI on the play on the target. However, I think we opened up the offense a bit too much and got ourselves into some negative plays that gave them free points. I also think we should have been more conservative on special teams. We just needed punt returners to secure possession and avoid turnovers. OU is looking for any way possible to give their offense a bunny layup

Deboer has bama headed in the right direction. Anyone who wants to yank the chair out from under him and have our players all transfer out and lose our recruits based on his results thus far are unhinged. We’re playing for a conference title.

To clarify…. I probably should say….Ive (almost) always said CKD needs three years before judging.

The lack of intensity and how the team performed against FSU was AWFUL. I probably did say fire his arse after that game. (Not sure that I did but definitely thought it)

Yes this team has significantly improved so much mentally and emotionally.

Defense is ahead of the game but offense is a struggle... But definitely improved. Won bunch of games on the road.

It’s hard to get a read on DeBoer as I’ve mentioned on this board previously.

I agree with much of the sentiment in this thread. He’s 95% against all of our rivals in some of their better iterations that really Nick never had to play against. He’s shown improvement as a coach and philosophically but I find it hard that he will need THREE years to institute his full run scheme and he got that bad of a draw. Maybe I’m just not a ball knower but I am aware that he and Grubb have a unique pull and lateral run scheme that has a specific type of linemen similar to Brailsford. Right now we have more of a chimera type of line with big road graters and smaller athletes but we’ll see.

I fully expect Keelon Russell or Austin Mack to be Kalen’s “chosen one” so to speak if they don’t transfer. Alabama is bringing in an insane amount of huge receivers and the prototypical linemen that he wants. I think over the next 3-4 years we’ll see results more similar to Saban’s last 5 years (not his opening 5 or prime….2015-2020) and it will be a more enjoyable brand of ball.

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On one hand, this is a different era where mud hole stomping teams is a rarer occurrence - especially when handed a frick you slate of games from Sankey for your first two seasons - but on the other hand it feels like we're our own worst enemy in terms of turning games well in hand to butthole clenchers.

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I think this also goes hand in with the SEC having unusually strong line play and Alabama doing a lot of line shuffling. Just a lot of factors come into screwing Alabama over. It’s almost a miracle that we’ve won 10 games considering most of them have been a score or less. A testament to the character of the team. It’s a sign that DeBoer is improving the culture and the team as a whole.

Indiana and OSU have mud stomped a good portion of their schedule this year even though it’s been relatively easy. The easier opponents Alabama has not. This comes down to offense. If Alabama had an offense that had a quarterback remotely similar to a Mac Jones or Bryce Young we’d be beating people by 3-4 touchdowns. Kane is having an amazing year as a DC. I love him as a DC.

I think Deboer finally has made the program his. It was still not last season. There are no more cliques, just a lot of players who have fully bought in.