Rome Has Fallen

Alabama is coming off a 9-4 season last year with losses to Vanderbilt, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and a bowl loss to Michigan. In Kalen DaBoer’s inaugural season the Tide lost 3 unranked games. The Tide opened the 2025 season with a loss to unranked Florida State. That’s 4 unranked losses in 14 games for DaBoer. Nick Saban only lost to unranked teams 4 times in his 230 game tenure with the Tide. This has caught the attention of the national media and many Tide fans. 

So what went wrong with one of the greatest programs in college sports? 

First of all, Kalen DaBoer is a fraud. Without Michael Penix and Rome Odunze you might not even know who Kalen DaBoer is. He was at Fresno State before Alabama and wasn’t bad and he went 9-3 in 2021 which led to him getting the job at Washington. At Washington he went 11-2 with a bowl win over Texas in the Alamo Bowl and then 14-1 with a National Championship appearance. Yes I know these accolades are good, but it wouldn’t be anything without one of the best quarterbacks in college football and wide receivers. I'm not here to say he’s a bad coach by any means, but the only reason he got the Alabama job is because he was coming off his best year as a coach and Alabama was desperate for someone. Without his national championship run he would’ve never even been offered the Bama job. 

There has been a lot of buzz going around that Alabama football players aren’t held accountable anymore. There was message board content saying Alabama players were out partying the night before and there is no accountability period in the program whatsoever.  In the old days with Saban even if Bama was up 40 points you still were held accountable for every play and there was no funny business going on in the program whatsoever. It has seemed they have shifted away from this mentality. 

Another big problem is their quarterback Ty Simpson, an inexperienced player that just isn’t good. He is a junior and has sat behind Jalen Milroe. He isn’t athletic, doesn't have a crazy arm and doesn’t do anything special. He wouldn’t be a bad quarterback for Virginia Tech but he is not near Bama good.  Against Florida State he didn’t look comfortable at all and his decision making was not good. He will have to settle in quickly before the Tide have to go through a SEC schedule. 

Now DaBoer has been around college football enough to learn and adapt. Maybe he is good enough to turn it around but in my opinion the signs are pointing the opposite way. The Tide has to take on 7 ranked teams the rest of the year.