Kalen DeBoer introduces offseason discipline that should have been there in first place

On the heels of a disappointing debut season at Alabama, one in which his team missed the 12-team College Football Playoff entirely while losing three games to teams with a combined record of 21-18, you'd hope that Kalen DeBoer would attack this offseason as aggressively as possible. And it seems like he and his program are doing just that, highlighted by a handful of key transfer additions and a top-five recruiting class that features the No. 2 quarterback in the country in five-star Keelon Russell.

Of course, it'll take more than acquiring some talent to keep the Tide at the top of the sport. They had plenty of talent in 2024, after all, only for inconsistency and undisciplined play to send things sideways. The good news is that DeBoer and his coaches seem intent on rectifying that problem this time around. The bad news is that some of the changes they've made should have fans wondering exactly what took them so long.

Alabama offseason update raises questions about how Kalen DeBoer was running his program last year

Redshirt sophomore lineman Roq Montgomery shed some light on the state of Alabama's offseason workouts recently, describing the team as "more dialed in" and "more serious" as it sets about preparing for 2025. Which is all well and good, but it also begs the question: Just why wasn't the Tide quite as dialed in or serious during DeBoer's first season at the helm?

Those questions will only get louder based on what else Montgomery had to say.

"You can't be late to workouts no more," Montgomery told The Bama Standard podcast. "If somebody late — we had a few people late, I'm not gonna throw nobody under the bus — if somebody late to workouts, everybody got 15 up-downs on Ballou's whistle. And then whoever late got to push a plate and do their workout, and 15 up-downs."

It's possible that Montgomery misspoke here, or simply didn't have the chance to go back and add some context. But that sure makes it sound not only like several players were late to workouts last year, but that they did so without facing too many consequences. That's a pretty far cry from the status quo under Nick Saban, and raises some concerns about DeBoer's learning curve at Alabama.

"Any team that has won before us, nobody was doing none of that," Montgomery added. "So why start doing it now? It's a lot of stuff that happened last year, but we ain't won a championship since 2020, so it's like what the hell we doing? That's not 'Bama football."

Montgomery is absolutely right that it's not 'Bama football, and at least it's better late than never to instill this sort of culture in your program. But DeBoer's first year on the job made it seem as though he had some learning to do in terms of how to win at the very highest levels of the sport, and maybe he has even more than we previously thought.