Along the west side of the Walk of Champions that leads to Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa stand five massive statues honoring the head coaches who have won national championships at Alabama. They have victory in common, and they have something else, too: None of them took very long to claim their titles. Wallace Wade, Gene Stallings and Nick Saban won championships in their third seasons, Bear Bryant and Frank Thomas in their fourth.
Kalen DeBoer, in his second season as Alabama head coach, might just beat them all in the next few weeks … or he might be on a white-hot seat in 72 hours. Such are the peaks and valleys that await every Alabama head coach.
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After missing the inaugural 12-team playoff a year ago, DeBoer and Alabama limped into this year’s bracket and face Oklahoma in the CFP’s first game on Friday night. DeBoer hasn’t even been at Alabama for two full seasons, and he’s already developed a blood nemesis in Oklahoma, which has beaten the Tide twice in a row as an underdog. A third loss to Oklahoma — which would mean a fourth loss in a season for a second year in a row — and DeBoer’s tenure in Tuscaloosa will become one of the offseason’s most fascinating topics.
To understand what DeBoer is up against, it’s necessary to understand the absurdly high measuring stick for coaches at Alabama. Put it this way: If you were to make a Mount Rushmore of college football head coaches, you’d start with two from Alabama before you even began considering any other two. That is the standard in Tuscaloosa.
Historically, when the stars and the polls align, the Alabama head coaching job is both the pinnacle and endpoint of a career. If you win a national title at Alabama — and, again, that’s the baseline expectation — you tend to finish your coaching days there, too.
Four of those five statue-worthy Alabama coaches ended their careers at the school. Thomas and Stallings retired. Bryant died just weeks after his last game, and Saban now spends Saturdays sitting next to Pat McAfee. Only Wade — the first national championship-winning coach at Alabama, the man who led Alabama to its legacy-defining Rose Bowl win in 1926 — coached at another institution after leaving Tuscaloosa. And his story is the most interesting in this current context.
In his two seasons and counting at Alabama, Kalen Deboer is 19-7. At most places, that would be enough, but Alabama isn’t most places. (Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
(Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
See if this sounds familiar: Wade, who won national championships in the 1925 and 1926 seasons, left Tuscaloosa disgusted with the absurd expectations of Alabama boosters in the years after those wins. His crime? Posting back-to-back 6-3 seasons. (Wade tendered his resignation before the 1930 season, then authored one of the great kiss-offs in college football history, going 10-0 in 1930, winning a third national championship, then immediately bolting for Duke.) A full century later at Alabama, and the story doesn’t change, only the guy holding the whistle (or headset) does.
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Alabama fan expectations induced Bryant into flirting with the Miami Dolphins after four seasons passed without a title. The calls for Stallings’ head came after just three games. Saban very nearly left for Texas in the early 2010s. (Saban’s wife Terry fired a memorable shot across the bow of Alabama boosters in a November 2013 Wall Street Journal interview: “You come to a crossroads and the expectations get so great, people get spoiled by success, and there starts to be a lack of appreciation,” she said. “We’re kind of there now.”)
And those coaches were icons, legends, national championship winners. What chance does Kalen DeBoer — does anyone, really — have against that kind of standard?
The most comparable past Alabama coaches to DeBoer’s situation don’t have statues. Look to the Dark Times — post-Bear, pre-Saban, 24 years with “only” one title — and amid names like Ray Perkins and the Mikes — DuBose, Price and Shula — are Bill Curry and Dennis Franchione. Both came to Alabama with no previous Tide ties. Both won seven games in their first season at Alabama, and 10 games in their final ones. But both went a combined 1-4 against Auburn … and both bolted for other jobs — Curry to Kentucky after three years, Franchione to Texas A&M after two.
It’s not like the Alabama coach meat grinder is any secret. There’s a reason DeBoer’s name has surfaced in connection with both the Penn State and Michigan jobs — and probably a few others under the national radar, too. Every Power 4 head coaching job is incredibly difficult … but not every one has championship-or-you’re-gone expectations.
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So yes, while DeBoer has the support of AD Greg Byrne and the university establishment, his seven losses — including four to unranked opponents — have already exhausted the patience of Alabama’s vocal fringes. A third loss to Oklahoma, an early playoff exit, another uninspired performance in a big game, another four-loss season … and the fringe will become the mainstream. That’s what happens at a program where the standard is a statue.
