What the No. 21 Missouri Tigers will be facing at Alabama Crimson Tide Saturday

In just his first season at Alabama, Kalen DeBoer has landed on the hot seat.

At least, that’s how ESPN analysts Paul Finebaum and Stephen A. Smith see the situation surrounding the first-year Crimson Tide football coach after his 5-2 start to the season — a start that includes a 2-2 record in Southeastern Conference games.

Last weekend’s 24-17 loss to Tennessee was the latest stumble for the team coached by DeBoer, who left Washington for the Crimson Tide job that became vacant when Nick Saban retired.

On ESPN’s “Get Up!,” Finebaum said DeBoer has “done a lousy job.” Smith was even harsher on ESPN’s “First Take,” saying he was “disgusted” by Alabama’s performance and that he doesn’t think DeBoer is the right man for the job.

The sentiment might be a little less intense in Tuscaloosa, where the Crimson Tide aren’t ready to give up on their new leader just yet.

Blake Byler, an Alabama beat reporter for On3, said the call for DeBoer’s ouster isn’t coming from inside the house.

“I think the overwhelming majority of Alabama fans understand that you’re going to have some growing pains with a new coach,” Byler said. “I think a lot of them really like Kalen DeBoer, and they like what he’s doing.

“They may not love the results and the two losses this season, but I don’t think any kind of rational, well-reasoned Alabama fan is going to be calling for DeBoer to be fired.”

Missouri Tigers coach Eli Drinkwitz — whose team plays at Alabama at 2:30 p.m. Saturday — went so far to say DeBoer is arguably the best coach in college football, comparing him to the likes of Georgia’s Kirby Smart.

On Wednesday, Drinkwitz said on “The Paul Finebaum Show” that people already howling for DeBoer’s removal are overreacting.

“I think in this day and age, everybody wants everything right now,” Drinkwitz said. “Kalen DeBoer is a tremendous football coach. His record shows that. The history of who he is shows that.

“And look, it’s not always going to be perfect, and it’s not always going to be microwavable. It’s going to take some time. And I know nobody likes patience right now, but just have some patience, all right? Everything’s just fine down there, and they’re a really talented football team.”

Perhaps, but this is also the first time since 2007 the Crimson Tide have suffered two losses before November.

They started 4-0, headlined by a 41-34 victory over Smart’s then-No. 1 Georgia team. That win vaulted Alabama to the No. 1 spot in the AP Top 25 Poll entering Week 6.

A 40-35 loss to then-unranked Vanderbilt was the first shock to the blue-blood program’s system. The Crimson Tide responded with a narrow 27-25 win against unranked South Carolina at home ... followed by the loss to the Vols.

Alabama was penalized 15 times for 115 total yards against Tennessee, another source of frustration for many Crimson Tide fans.

Discipline remains a talking point in college football analysts’ assessment of DeBoer’s inaugural season with Alabama. Some mention how differently DeBoer and Saban seem to handle team discipline.

Byler explained that DeBoer’s calm, even-keeled demeanor is foreign to Alabama fans accustomed to Saban’s expressive reactions. DeBoer seems to handle disciplinary issues internally, Byler said.

“Coming off of losses,” Byler said, “they (fans) kind of expect a coach that’s going to come to the podium and use that time to send a message to his team, and use that time to give a speech or give something that’s a way of telling his players something he wants to hear.

“But that’s just not really who Kalen DeBoer is, and that’s not how he operates.”

Those comparisons to Saban, although expected, have led to illusions that all was always well under DeBoer’s predecessor.

“Already, we’re hitting a bit of revisionist history when it comes to looking at what the Nick Saban era was,” Byler said. “Yes, he was dominant; yes, he won a lot of games and won a lot of championships, and they did it following ‘the process,’ as he calls it. But it wasn’t without your every-so-often moment of a player acting out or acting out of character.”

As DeBoer and the No. 15 Crimson Tide get ready to welcome 21st-ranked Mizzou into Bryant-Denny Stadium for this week’s Homecoming game, they’re also reacquainting themselves with a couple of familiar faces.

Tigers offensive coordinator Kirby Moore and DeBoer worked together for four years at Fresno State. DeBoer started off as the Bulldogs’ offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach from 2017-18 before returning to the program as head coach from 2020-21.

Moore started out as Fresno State’s wide receivers coach from 2017-19, added the title of passing game coordinator under DeBoer and then transitioned to offensive coordinator for a season after DeBoer’s departure.

“Kirby is a guy I’ve been through battles with,” DeBoer said during the weekly SEC coaches teleconference.

“There’s certainly a lot of familiar things that I see on the film, but there’s some other things that he or Coach Drinkwitz or the staff have come together to evolve, probably based on their personnel and who they have there,” DeBoer continued. “He’s doing a great job at Missouri for sure.”

The similarities aren’t limited to offense. From 2021 to 2023, Missouri defensive coordinator Corey Batoon worked under Alabama defensive coordinator Kane Wommack at South Alabama, with Wommack the head coach and Batoon defensive coordinator.

“There’s certainly a lot of familiar faces and I guess familiar schemes,” Wommack said. “Eli Drinkwitz, we’ve known each other for a long time, both grew up in northwest Arkansas. Defensive coordinator Corey Batoon was my defensive coordinator at South Alabama for the last three years. (He) worked for my dad for a number of years so obviously system, scheme-wise there’s a lot of similarities.”

The Tigers’ first injury report of the week listed 10 new players, in addition to those already ruled out for the season.

Quarterback Brady Cook, running back Nate Noel and wide receiver Mookie Cooper were listed as doubtful Wednesday night. Six other players are questionable: left guard Cayden Green, tight end Brett Norfleet and safeties Daylan Carnell, Sidney Williams Sr., Tre’Vez Johnson and Joesph Charleston. Wide receiver Marquis Johnson was listed as probable on the report.

“At the end of the day it’s going to be the players on the field making plays, and we’re going to try to put them in the best positions possible to defend what they do,” Drinkwitz said.

“Obviously, I think both sides of the ball will try to have some wrinkles that put us in a bind, whether it’s for us offensively, whether it’s coverage that we don’t like, or defensively if it’s a motion that we don’t like.”

This story was originally published October 24, 2024 at 1:41 PM.