Is Kalen DeBoer on Nick Saban's path? Iron Bowl will tell | Goodbread
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Kalen DeBoer and Nick Saban aren’t to be compared, right?
One still living a dream, the other a living legend.
One must coach on Planet NIL.
The other dominated the world that preceded it.
As Alabama football’s second-year coach approaches the Iron Bowl, almost nothing in the sport is the same as it was in 2008, when Saban was prepping for his second go against archrival Auburn. Except this: the two coaches compiled identical 18-6 records through their first 24 games. For those who closely witnessed Alabama football’s quick rise to prominence under Saban, that might be hard to believe, but let the record show DeBoer and the GOAT are square, for now, in the most important metric of all: the W-L department.
Yet the perception of program’s condition when Saban was 18-6 is vastly different from what it is today for DeBoer.
Seventeen years ago this week, the Crimson Tide was 11-0 and roaring toward a potential national championship. The trajectory of Alabama football was aiming skyward. UA had beaten Clemson, Georgia and Tennessee all by double digits, and the next target in Saban’s sight was Auburn. All six of his losses to that point had been jammed into his highly transitional first campaign, 2007, which served to establish a new culture and get the program’s house in order. By Year Two, Alabama looked like a completely different team. Bigger, stronger, faster, tougher. Saban had largely turned the roster over, combining two signing classes with a core of outstanding holdovers from the Mike Shula era to form a team that began taking the sport by storm.
UA throttled Auburn 36-0 to complete a 12-0 regular season, but was denied championship glory in losing to Florida in the SEC title game.
DeBoer’s trajectory, also at 18-6, enters the 2025 Iron Bowl with no such certainty.
Instead, it hinges on a few hours in Jordan-Hare Stadium on Saturday. It’s a place that can be exceptionally hard for Alabama to win whether it has a talent advantage or not. Its last trip there — Saban’s last trip — was a prime example. DeBoer’s team will travel to the Plains with an impressive mark of 9-2, but leaking some oil in the form of a stagnant rushing attack, a suddenly erratic passing attack, and special teams woes to boot. A loss would render Alabama with a three-loss regular season once again, and almost certainly out of the College Football Playoff picture once again. Missing a 12-team playoff field twice in a row wouldn’t meet even the most charitable definition of success for Alabama fans, nor would it meet DeBoer’s either.
Yet a win could put DeBoer’s second team in position to achieve a championship that Saban’s second team could not. An Iron Bowl victory would be a gateway to a berth in the SEC title game, which would in turn be a gateway to a strong seeding in the CFP. The list of Alabama coaches who have won a conference championship by their second season is an awfully short one: Wallace Wade and Frank Thomas.
DeBoer could be the third.
Or he could be left wondering what went wrong.
Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of Crimson Cover TV on WVUA-23. Reach him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on X.com @chasegoodbread.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Is Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer on Nick Saban’s path? Iron Bowl will tell
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