The last time one of these columns was necessary, I was almost still considered a newlywed, I had just moved back to Alabama from Tennessee and the elderly shelter rescue dog that is sleeping nearby probably hadn’t been born yet.
There’s a big gap from 2007 to 2024. Specifically, it’s longer than an entire elementary and secondary education. It’s a timeframe that is a year short of being allowed to vote, if existential comparisons were allowed at the polls. It’s also a big jar of shut-up juice for every member of the media who resents Alabama’s multi-century record of competency, if not domination – and if you want to stick all of those guys in the same room, you’re going to need to rent a civic center – because all Alabama heard for the first year of Nick Saban’s tenure was that there wouldn’t be a year two.
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Then there wouldn’t be a year three. Then it was four. Somewhere around ten or eleven, they turned their attention elsewhere and hoped the Crimson Tide fanbase would forget.
To their credit, they’re not making the same mistake twice with Kalen DeBoer. A few rivals have floated the NFL balloon but for the most part, no one wants to come across looking that petty twice in their career. And while it’s much too soon to project that DeBoer will have great success in Tuscaloosa, the raw elements all seem to be in place.
When Alabama trots out onto the field tomorrow evening to face Western Kentucky, every amateur analyst will parse the stat sheets, margin of victory and even the way the team “looks,” and will attempt to draw something from it. The wishcasters who desperately hope Alabama slides back to where it was in the times of Ray Perkins or Bill Curry – coaches who did good things in Tuscaloosa (Curry won an SEC title, even, and nearly got the chance to play for a national championship) but who weren’t “successful” by Alabama standards – will hope that DeBoer flunks this first test. But it’s a test with no grade; aside from winning, what does Alabama have to do in this game in order for the result to have been “successful?”
To that end, here’s what I’ll be looking for in this game. Call it another edition of our weekly Five-Point Breakdown, except done on the front end:
1. How will the defense react when – not if – things go sideways?
Things always go sideways; it’s just a matter of how often, and how do you respond to it. Alabama’s biggest schematic change this year is not related to Kalen DeBoer’s Air Raid-flavored, spready pro-set, motion offense whatever-whatever, but rather to what’s going on on the defensive side. There, Kane Wommack is in charge of making a 3-4 over/under into a 4-2-5 Swarm, and with the change comes a complete rethink of defensive line gap responsibilities and the amount of zone defense played versus man-to-man. So when Western Kentucky hits a big one – and then another, and possibly a third – will the defensive backs lose their confidence? Will the defense as a whole look to the sideline with consternation? This isn’t a technical question so much as it is one of poise. Western Kentucky has talent at quarterback and receiver, but it isn’t Georgia or Tennessee talent. I’m almost hoping for some level of turmoil here so that I can see how the defense, in particularly the DBs, will react.
2. Will Jalen Milroe take the next step forward in his development?
Milroe was a play away from getting his team into the College Football Championship Game in 2023, so it’s not like we’re wondering whether a journeyman backup catcher can suddenly slash .300/30/100. However, the offensive changes that DeBoer’s system brought in are almost all related to processing speed and knowing where to go with the ball well in advance of the snap. Milroe can be one of the best quarterbacks in the country but there are some legitimate criticisms about his game, and one of those is that he holds the ball far too long sometimes before throwing or trying to run. It’s even more maddening given how dangerous a runner he is, how physical he is, and what kind of damage he could probably do if he’d just let his horse out of the gate. There isn’t really a quarterback competition going on right now, but backup Ty Simpson has drawn raves from practice observers. How will the coaches evaluate whether Milroe is developing along with the new offense?
3. OL play has to get better.
The biggest disappointment of the 2023 Alabama team was probably its offensive line play. We’ve hashed the number to death; Alabama was terrible at preventing sacks, and Jalen Milroe had his part to play in that, but Milroe had much less to do with tackles for loss allowed in the running game, yet the Bama OL was bad there, too. It’s unclear whether former line coach Eric Wolford was to blame, or who exactly decided that Alabama’s linemen needed to be so big (and, at times, notoriously immobile), but this is one of those things that has to change immediately. In the first game, Jaeden Roberts won’t be at 100 percent, and Alabama still hasn’t settled on a right tackle, although it looks like redshirt freshman Wilkin Formby is going to get the first shot. We should be able to tell where things are trending by how much quicker the tackles look, or how well new center Parker Brailsford snaps the ball to Milroe, a simple task made difficult at times last year by Seth McLaughlin. If Bama’s OL improves, the sky’s the limit for the offense. If it repeats its 2023 performance then it’s going to be a long year for the offense.
4. Will the new defensive front make more plays, both from the inside and off the edge?
Two things are going on here: One, there’s going to be a lot less two-gap technique played by Alabama’s defensive tackles. Two, there is no more Jack linebacker, so the Wolf and Bandit spots are going to be dedicated defensive ends more often than not rather than playing in space. In regard to gap technique, the 4-2-5 Swarm is going to have Bama’s tackles playing one-gap technique most of the time, which should allow for better penetration and more big plays from the middle. This ought to make recruiting linemen a lot easier going forward, because Alabama lost more than a few tackle prospects in recent years because it couldn’t promise them they would be featured in the defense. Two-gap technique, to put it simply, asks the defensive linemen to occupy offensive linemen, while the linebackers and safeties roam around and collect stats.
The related question is whether the defensive tackles currently on campus are good fits for one-gap technique. Tim Keenan, for instance, is the prototypical two-gap guy; how will he do now when he’s expected to get more upfield? Just as big a question, if not bigger, is whether Quandarrius Robinson, Keanu Koht, Jah-Marien Latham and L.T. Overton can replace Dallas Turner and Chris Braswell off the edge. Turner and Braswell were both drafted – Turner is an NFL star in the making, and Braswell might be as well – so there’s already the usual pressure of replacing NFL talent. But good OLB/DE play usually leads to good cornerback play, so what will Alabama do if the new line struggles to “Swarm?”
5. Will DeBoer (and new OC Nick Sheridan) be able to reignite Alabama’s offensive firepower?
Alabama hasn’t been particularly explosive since Steve Sarkisian was its offensive coordinator. Bill O’Brien’s more staid approach to offense, leaning heavily on matchups and the right arm of Bryce Young, put up decent results but not what Bama fans had grown accustomed to under Sarkisian, Mike Locksley or Lane Kiffin. Tommy Rees was told to make Bama more physical (see earlier comments about OL heft) and to an extent, he did, but Alabama didn’t pop much last year (other than off the legs, or deep arm of Milroe), and Rees was hamstrung a bit not just by the OL play, but by an insistence, perhaps from Saban himself, on playing less-dynamic veteran running backs over younger, quicker players. There was also the question of receiver play and especially receiver coaching, which had grown suspect under Holman Wiggins.
The biggest question now is whether Nick Sheridan is Ryan Grubb, Part Two. Grubb went to the Seattle Seahawks rather than settle in Tuscaloosa, and Sheridan’s resume is not on Grubb’s level. But if Sheridan and DeBoer can recreate the Washington offense at Alabama, fans are licking their lips at the prospect of what this offense can do with this area’s talent. Keep an eye on the design and the flow of Alabama’s offense, even if Bama doesn’t push the gas pedal down all the way against Western Kentucky.
Follow Jess Nicholas on X at @TideFansJessN