TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Up 30-7 with less than two minutes remaining in what was as dominant a first half as you’ll see, Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer was furious.
There were countless offseason stories about how nice and normal DeBoer is in comparison to his fiery and maniacal predecessor. DeBoer doesn’t curse and comes off as almost stoic away from the football field.
But here was DeBoer, beet red in the face, absolutely letting the officials have it for what looked like a blatant missed pass interference call, not letting it go for more than a minute in as explosive an emotional display as you’ll see from him. To fans on the couch, DeBoer’s tirade maybe came across as a meaningless, menial tantrum in a blowout. Maybe DeBoer knew, even then, he’d still be in for the game of his life before the night ended.
The new boss isn’t so different from the old one, after all. Nick Saban, who was in attendance, had to have been smiling seeing the display. Never relent.
If you’re a rival SEC program, what you saw Saturday night must be beyond demoralizing.
Thought you’d catch Alabama slipping without college football’s greatest coach ever? Think again. There will be no respite from Alabama supremacy if this is the Crimson Tide team we see the rest of this season. No. 4 Alabama 41, No. 2 Georgia 34.
This was supposed to be the litmus test for DeBoer, the “Welcome to the SEC” moment that’d show whether he’d sink or swim against the new face of college football.
On a beautiful fall Saturday night inside a rocking Bryant-Denny Stadium, DeBoer made a strong case that he’s the best college football coach in America at this very moment. In the last 12 months, he’s beaten Texas’ Steve Sarkisian, he’s beaten Oregon’s Dan Lanning, he’s beaten USC’s Lincoln Riley and now he’s bested Smart, the owner of two of the last three national championships. The 49-year-old DeBoer is a stunning 24-1 in his last 25 games, the lone loss coming against Michigan in last season’s national championship game.
DeBoer is a stone-cold killer, an offensive genius who unlocked the best version we’ve ever seen of Jalen Milroe against the Bulldogs. He and offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan were in their bag all night, especially straight from the jump, giving Smart and defensive coordinator Glenn Schumman’s defense absolute fits. Alabama looked faster, executed better and looked like a true juggernaut throughout a first half that was even better than anything DeBoer could have dreamed up.
At the end of the first half, Georgia was in its largest halftime hole since 2016. The Bulldogs scratched all the way back, but could not quite recover from the early hole DeBoer scripted up.
And by the end of the night, Milroe looked like he should be the Heisman Trophy favorite.
The natural comparison to what transpired is the 2008 “Blackout” game against Georgia, the moment that Saban and Alabama announced their arrival to the college football world as a force to be reckoned with. On that Sept. 27 night, famously proclaimed as a funeral by then-strength and conditioning coach Scott Cochran, Alabama blitzed Georgia in Athens to get out to a 31-0 halftime lead in a shocking display that showed the Tide was legitimate. That season ended in an SEC Championship loss to eventual national champion Florida and a Sugar Bowl loss to Utah, but a year later, Alabama was atop the sport.
Saban went on to win six national championships in Tuscaloosa, the greatest run college football had ever seen.
The scary thing? DeBoer is ahead of schedule.
A year ago, no one could have predicted the second-year Washington head coach would be the guy to replace the G.O.A.T. in Tuscaloosa. The 49-year old South Dakota native was well-regarded in football circles, but still mostly anonymous to the average fan after rising through the ranks from NAIA Sioux Falls to Southern Illinois to Eastern Michigan to Indiana to Fresno State before finally landing at Washington.
There were questions galore about how the transition from Saban to DeBoer would look in Year 1. Most frequent was how would he handle the pressure of the ultra-competitive SEC where a Crimson Tide loss can send the entire state of Alabama into a panic?
On Saturday night, DeBoer showed he was more than up for that challenge. He came out firing. His Tide held on. And that 17-year-old pirouetting down the sideline, Ryan Williams? It’s not like DeBoer just got to inherit the five-star without any elbow grease. DeBoer had to get right to work in re-recruiting the decommitted in-state talent. Williams may have won him the game Saturday.
“Just being himself, not trying to be like Coach Saban,” Tide receiver Ryan Williams explained is how DeBoer beat out the competition. “Being his own man and doing it the way he wants to do it. Whenever we had that conversation, he won me over.”
Any fear over how DeBoer would replace Saban is now billowing out of places like Athens, Gainesville and Auburn.
Against Kirby Smart’s powerhouse Georgia program, DeBoer looked the guy ready to claim the college football throne Saban vacated.
