Everyone in Alabama is still getting used to life after Nick Saban.
This is the first season that Saban hasn’t been the coach of the Crimson Tide since 2006, so there’s obviously going to be an adjustment period with Coach Kalen DeBoer taking over. Scoring wise, it looks like the Tide will continue to Roll in Nick Saban fashion, considering they beat Western Kentucky University 63-0 in Week 1.
So maybe the product on the field won’t be that much different. It’ll just be the fact that Nick Saban is no longer standing and yelling like a mad man on the Alabama sideline. He’s instead sitting next to Pat McAfee on ESPN’s College GameDay… looking like he might rather be coaching a college team:
Two different types of people 😂 @PatMcAfeeShow pic.twitter.com/ATqS0XkXyG
— College GameDay (@CollegeGameDay) August 31, 2024
It took a lot of guts for Kalen DeBoer to be “the guy after Saban” at Alabama. He left his job at Washington to take over the Crimson Tide, and though some Alabama fans weren’t all that excited with the hire, there’s no doubt that he’s a top-of-the-line head coach.
But because he took over for the Tide after Saban retired, he’s always going to have that “Nick Saban Bar” that he has to keep up with. And there will even be times where DeBoer gets mixed up with the legendary college coach, as you’ll see in the video below.
Hopefully as time goes on (and if Kalen does enough to keep Bama fans happy, thus keeping his job), this kind of stuff will happen less and less for Coach DeBoer. But he’ll have to make sure to take mixups in stride, just like he did here where sportscaster Chris Stewart called him Coach Saban during a live show for the Crimson Tide Sports Network.
They only made it through one show with Coach Kalen DeBoer before they referred to him as the former head coach:
At least we made it to the 2nd show with Coach @KalenDeBoer. 🤣 @CStewartSports #RollTide | @Alfa_Insurance pic.twitter.com/lGOIPs0yxS
— Crimson Tide Sports Network (@UA_CTSN) September 4, 2024
