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re: Kalen DeBoer/Les Miles comparison the first two years following Saban
Posted on 1/25/26 at 6:16 am to Tuscaloosa
Posted on 1/25/26 at 6:16 am to Tuscaloosa
quote:
B+ seems fair. Dealt with a transfer portal that was the Wild West after Saban’s retirement
Even with the "Wild West" portal, Saban left him a stacked roster and an incredible brand. Plus he road Saban's coattails to a #2 ranked recruiting class. DeBoer had just completed a CFP season at Washington albeit against the final year of Pac12 competition so more was probably expected.
B+ is very generous.
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Posted on 1/25/26 at 7:06 am to BlackCloud
I give Kalen DeBoer a B just for coming in behind the footsteps of Nick Saban. There was a lot of players leaving and almost no hope of them fielding a really good team, and catching up with NIL etc. I think he did better than expected his first two years. Expectations this year for him to win big this year will be brutal.
Posted on 1/25/26 at 7:29 am to WG_Dawg
quote:
Kirby and lane elevated their programs to New heights. Book is still out on deboers very young tenure obviously, but at the moment he is trending in the wrong direction.
DeBoer's tenure is actually trending very slightly upwards over a small sample size. He went from 3 regular season losses with no SECCG or CFP appearance in his first season to 2 regular season losses with a SECCG and CFP appearance in his second season. Not that there aren't concerns, of course there are, to wit:
-He does have the occasional inexplicable loss where we look completely unprepared. No real defense of this, we just have to hope it's a relic of the regime change and goes away.
-He did get blown away by Georgia and Indiana in the postseason. Ugly losses but to have even gotten such a limited team to those games was an accomplishment. Besides, Oregon also got blown away by Indiana and I don't see anyone here calling for Lanning's' job.
-The offense this year was abysmal so far as running the ball. No sugarcoating this one but he has let Kapilovic go so he's hopefully making the right moves to fix it.
I think any rational Bama fan will tell you that we are cautiously optimistic with DeBoer but this coming season is going to tell the tale of his tenure here. If we roll out another offense that can't run the ball, he won't survive.
Posted on 1/25/26 at 7:36 am to TheTideMustRoll
quote:
TheTideMustRoll
I don't disagree with anything you said. But I think if you take all that and throw it in a hat and assign a grade to it, I just don't see how you can call that B-territory.
Nobody is (or should have) expected him to just pick right up for saban, that'd be impossible. But the losses and poor play indicate that not only has he not kept the car on cruise but again things are trending down. I don't think "making playoffs" is really a great barometer of success considering there's 12 teams in it. He has had some really high profile wins to be sure, but also some absolute WTF head scratching losses. In addition to 8 losses in two years. That's concerning.
Posted on 1/25/26 at 8:46 am to BlackCloud
D to C-
He's underperformed too much to give him anything higher
He's underperformed too much to give him anything higher
Posted on 1/25/26 at 8:49 am to BlackCloud
Bama wins the natty next year?
Posted on 1/25/26 at 9:05 am to WG_Dawg
Yep, I agree with everything you said. No one expected him to replicate what Saban did but not look like we have in some games. He's got his third year to show improvement and possibly a fourth year if year three shows promise.
Posted on 1/25/26 at 9:07 am to rolltideroyalty
quote:
All you idiots just throw out that loss number.. ignoring that we played an extra SEC championship game and multiple playoff games..
If OLE MISS played UGA in the SECC, Bama might have finished 11-2, albeit missing the SECC and CFP. Wonder if those guys value SECC and CFP less than overall record. How that would have affected the conversation?
OMG, 11 of the 12 teams in the CFP lost and finished the season in a downward spiral.
Posted on 1/25/26 at 9:14 am to WG_Dawg
quote:
I don't think "making playoffs" is really a great barometer of success
Would actually WINNING a playoff game in oh, let's say the last 3 or so seasons be a great barometer to you ? Because SEVERAL teams have failed to accomplish that and KDB has done it twice.
Posted on 1/25/26 at 9:27 am to BlackCloud
The national championship runner-up had 3 losses this year and they didn't play in a conference title game.
But muh 4 losses!!!!!!1!!!!1!!!!!
But muh 4 losses!!!!!!1!!!!1!!!!!
Posted on 1/25/26 at 9:39 am to Chris ALL Capps
quote:
Would actually WINNING a playoff game in oh, let's say the last 3 or so seasons be a great barometer to you ? Because SEVERAL teams have failed to accomplish that and KDB has done it twice.
obviously context is important, which you already know.
Kalen missed the playoffs in year one and made it this year with 3 losses and no hardware.
Last year Penn State got two playoff wins by beating the DEI entrants SMU and Boise. Should we be impressed by that? Oregon got a playoff win thsi year by beating a team that had less than zero business being the playoff. Should that be impressive simply because it's a "playoff win"?
I think there are plenty of examples of a team with a "playoff win" not really meaning shite.
Posted on 1/25/26 at 10:09 am to BlackCloud
quote:
Who is at fault for that OL play?
Coaching staff of course.. But we haven't had a good Oline in a while...
Sabans last year he still made a 4 teams playoff, so nobody cared, but that Oline was offsides every other play and when they weren't they would launch a bad snap over the QBs head..
I think had Saban stayed he would've addressed those needs in the portal/HS, but Deboer came in and needed to keep the roster/culture.. so he was limited..and last year the unique QB wildcat run game we had kinda masked those run blocking issues..
Plus the best OLineman we had was one of Debo's transfers from Washington!
So Ya B+
Also what happened to Nuss, weren't you the one saying he was a heisman lock lol
Posted on 1/25/26 at 10:58 am to BlackCloud
quote:
Kalen DeBoer/Les Miles comparison the first two years following Saban
Ultimately hard to compare because Les Miles got to keep the roster that Saban left him and DeBoer lost their best returning skill player, a safety that is the best safety pro prospect in quite some time, a future Heisman finalist QB, and probably about half a starting lineup of starters to the portal. Additionally, the SEC has more schools and fewer of the big dogs with some sort of self-inflicted or NCAA-inflicted limiter over them.
Frankly, Les Miles got lucky that 2007 was such a wild year for the BCS to handle and back-doored a national title. He inarguably underachieved the roster losing 4 games in the first two years. Losing to Georgia in 2005 was just silly and they got stomped by them in the SECCG. Katrina fricking their schedule up can explain that away I suppose.
Posted on 1/25/26 at 11:39 am to captdalton
quote:
Kalen Deboer (Alabama): 20-8 Kirby Smart (Georgia): 21-7 Lane Kiffin (Ole Miss): 15-8
One of these schools is not like the others…
Posted on 1/25/26 at 11:45 am to Tuscaloosa
quote:
B+ seems fair. Dealt with a transfer portal that was the Wild West after Saban’s retirement - completely different than what was in place this year. Brutal schedule this year, but improved the record, finished 7-1 in the SEC against that brutal schedule, and continued to recruit at an elite level.
Love seeing the cope. I agree with you. Yall should keep Kalen for 10 more years minimum!
Posted on 1/25/26 at 1:09 pm to TroyTider
quote:
If OLE MISS played UGA in the SECC, Bama might have finished 11-2,
But bama did play in the SECCG......
quote:
OMG, 11 of the 12 teams in the CFP lost and finished the season in a downward spiral.
Bama had the worst loss in the playoff...Tulane and JMU were more competitive than bama against Indiana...
Bama fans can't wish these blowouts away....no sir...they count
Posted on 1/25/26 at 1:14 pm to BlackCloud
Not a Bama fan but prob a B-
Posted on 1/25/26 at 10:49 pm to BlackCloud
quote:
But, what nobody seems to want to address is the fact that Kalen has lost too many games where he was favored by more than two TD's by teams that were ranked lower in the AP and composite rankings.
On no make no mistake that’s been fully addressed. It’s not acceptable. Not the loss but the manner in which they lost was the biggest issue. My only point is we can’t compare what coaches do in this era bs what was happening just 5/6 yrs ago. It’s not a fair comparison and a lot of this is out of the coaches hands now. With NIL and portal a coach is absolutely limited by the funds available at their university and also the funds that the university is willing to spend. Ohio state in operating in the red since NIL and I can promise you they have much more money that Alabama does.
Posted on 1/26/26 at 7:57 am to labamafan
quote:
My only point is we can’t compare what coaches do in this era bs what was happening just 5/6 yrs ago. It’s not a fair comparison and a lot of this is out of the coaches hands now.
I disagree, a well-coached, disciplined football team looks the same in any era (see Indiana).
quote:
With NIL and portal a coach is absolutely limited by the funds available at their university and also the funds that the university is willing to spend.
Bama fans can keep trying to use this excuse, but Kalen had the highest ranked composite team last year and the second highest team this year.
The consistency in performance every week is not there with his teams and that has nothing to do with NIL.
Posted on 1/26/26 at 8:00 am to BlackCloud
When did Miles make the NC game at Ok St?
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