Grade the take: Did Kalen DeBoer really ‘ace’ his first year as Alabama head coach?

Before I begin, I just want to say that Ari Wasserman is one of my favorite college football writers and personalities covering the sport today. His love and passion for the best game on the planet come through in every article he writes and in every podcast he appears on. However, I do have a bone to pick with his steadfast assertion that Kalen DeBoer "aced" his first season as Alabama's head coach.

Over the weekend, Wasserman wrote the following over on On3 about how great of a job Alabama did this year. The Crimson Tide were a good, but not great team. They went 9-3 overall, but 5-3 in SEC play. Yes, they got a huge win over my alma mater of Georgia, but a trio of conference defeats to Vanderbilt, Tennessee and Oklahoma were very atypical of the seasons we all grew accustomed to.

At the start of the year, I predicted that Alabama would go 9-3 and miss the College Football Playoff, which they did. I saw this as a bit of a transitional period for the Crimson Tide. How could it not be? The greatest head coach of all time retired in Nick Saban. DeBoer was hand-selected to come over from Washington to be his successor. I would say that during year one DeBoer put out a few big fires.

However, it is not about missing the playoff, but who you lost to. Entering 2024, I forecasted that Alabama's three losses would be Georgia, LSU and Tennessee. While they beat the Dawgs in Bryant-Denny and had no issues with the Bayou Bengals, the Vanderbilt defeat was bad and the Oklahoma loss was downright pitiful. That was way too much variance for a Saban-led program.

While I do think that Wasserman is right in that Alabama had a good season, it was not a great one.

Grade the take: Kalen DeBoer had a brilliant first season at Alabama

Up to this point, Wasserman has built his career at On3 and at The Athletic before that on the back of Stars Matter. It is something that I hold true as well. While great coaching and a few big hits in the transfer portal can help make up the difference, only a handful of teams can realistically win a national championship, year in and year out. It is teams who regularly land recruiting class around the top five.

I would probably kick that out to say you need to recruit at a top-15 level in the era of College Football Playoff expansion. You need to have a strong foothold in the abundance of talent coming out of high school. The hit rate may not be as much as it could be in the transfer portal at times, but the law of large numbers is forever in your favor in that realm. You simply have more bites at the apple that way.

As far as do I believe in DeBoer long-term, I tend to side with yes. He has won everywhere he has been before, and I expect for him to do the same at Alabama. Missing the playoff was not the end of the world. Being able to retain some high-end talent both internally and out of the high school ranks is a huge step in the right direction. My biggest concern is this could become Mark Helfrich at Oregon.

It is a touch different, as Helfrich was promoted from within once Chip Kelly ventured off to the NFL. However, he inherited a team with a ton of momentum in Eugene. More importantly, he inherited the most important player in Oregon history in one Marcus Mariota. Oregon did play for the first national championship in the playoff era. That was a decade ago, and Oregon has not played in it up until now.

What I am getting at is DeBoer is too good of a coach to let all the air out of the Saban balloon. Not to say this thing could have driven itself, but lesser coaches could have conceivably achieved a similar mark. Again, DeBoer did exactly what I thought he would in year one at Alabama. Unfortunately, the Vanderbilt and Oklahoma losses make 9-3 less compelling than if they lost to Georgia or LSU instead.

Overall, DeBoer did enough to take any semi-realistic pressure off his plate by simply beating Auburn in the Iron Bowl to finish at 9-3. An 8-4 record and 4-4 in SEC play would have been a huge sign of trouble. Admittedly, it was quite turbulent for DeBoer and the Crimson Tide this year with Saban retiring relatively late in the process. I commend the job DeBoer and his staff did this college season.

Ultimately, I cannot in good faith say that DeBoer "aced" his first season on the job at Alabama. He passed the test, but I would not say he did so with flying colors. As the former king of the 89.5 in high school, that is much closer than the 97-plus mark Wasserman seems to be arguing for. Yes, DeBoer did fine in his first season on the job, but we should be doing cartwheels in the streets over this year.

Grade the Take: DeBoer's first season with Alabama: B
Ari Wasserman's Take: C's get degrees!