Twice in calendar year 2024, Alabama came up short trying to score in the waning moments of a loss to Michigan. In both cases, missed opportunities leading up to those moments proved to be just as big as the moments themselves.
Following a madcap first quarter in the ReliaQuest Bowl, Alabama should be saluted for making a game of things, considering just how far behind the Crimson Tide could have been had its defense not played one of its most courageous games of the past several years. The fact that Alabama was ever down 16-0 to Michigan, though, points to the problems with this team and its identity.
The identity of the 2024 Crimson Tide would always be tied to the transition away from Nick Saban to whoever took over the reins next. When Alabama elected to hire one of the most functionally opposite head coaches in the country, from the standpoint of offensive philosophy, that transition wasn’t going to be made any easier.
When Kalen DeBoer finally gets a moment to himself in the next couple of months, maybe he’ll reflect not just on the things that could have gone differently, but of the decisions he could have made that would have changed the course of the season. While it’s easy to look back with the perfect vision of hindsight – who would have thought, in the moments after Alabama’s unlikely victory over Georgia, that we’d be talking about a team that would probably have been better served by a complete flushing out of the past staff’s philosophies and choices? – the fact remains that Alabama opened the year 4-0, finished it 5-4 and did so largely because too many square pegs got shoved into round holes.
While the Alabama coaches and fans await Jalen Milroe’s decision on his 2025 future, there is one option that at this point can’t really happen, and that’s Milroe coming back as the Alabama quarterback nine months from now.
It’s a painful sentence to write, because Milroe has been one of the best representatives of the school that Alabama could have ever asked for. Wild rumors aside about players or groups of players intervening on his behalf during the times he struggled on the field, Milroe never gave Alabama any heartburn off of it. For two years, he was the public face of the program and handled it as well as anyone else who could have been put in that position, or has been put in that position.
The problem is, as much of an odd fit as Milroe was for what Bill O’Brien and Tommy Rees wanted to do offensively during their time as offensive coordinators, he may have been an even worse fit for what Kalen DeBoer wants to do.
Alabama ended up having to modify DeBoer’s preferred system significantly, welding on parts of other offenses and reshaping others, until what it ended up with was a mishmash of things that didn’t work particularly well together. Both Oklahoma and Michigan figured it out completely, and despite the comeback in the bowl game today, Milroe never looked like he had a grasp of the things that were coming at him.
That brings up a pair of questions: Does Milroe really have an NFL future? He certainly has NFL athleticism, and after watching NFL teams draft imperfect-but-physical specimens for years because they believed they could fix what no one else could, betting against Milroe being drafted – highly, even – would just be giving away money to the bookie.
The second question, though, is for DeBoer: When it became so very clear against Tennessee, Oklahoma and Michigan – especially the latter two – that Milroe couldn’t do what is necessary in this system to produce points, what exactly does it take to get a quarterback benched, even for a couple of series?
DeBoer will be given every chance to succeed at Alabama, and due to a combination of what modern program-building forces schools to do and his enormous buyout, DeBoer is virtually guaranteed to coach the next two seasons at Alabama at least, if not the next three, even with no significant improvement.
But if DeBoer truly believes in his Air Raid-flavored pro-style offense, and if he really believes he’s the long-term answer for this program, he’ll change his approach next year regarding accountability – not necessarily to any kind of behavioral standard, but simply the accountability to produce. He can’t be shy about benching the popular quarterback after several turnovers, anymore than he was in benching Alabama’s lone healthy inside linebacker, Justin Jefferson, in a critical moment late in Tuesday’s game after he got flagged for throwing a punch.
DeBoer had a tough road to travel in 2024. He had to manage 120 guys who probably felt abandoned by Nick Saban in the middle of their careers, with some of them coming to Alabama solely to be coached by Saban. DeBoer made the choice to make roster retention his top priority and to love on the players who stayed to help get them through the tough times.
Next year, and for all future years in this incredibly cutthroat and selfish world of modern college football, he has to choose winning above all else.
Here’s the Five-Point Breakdown for Alabama-Michigan:
1. We’ll start with the good: The defense played lights-out and deserve an ovation. Alabama’s defense got a lot of heat earlier in the year for allowing a lot of long drives and making mistakes, but it was in the middle of a schematic transition, too. And once players started playing aggressively, they got comfortable in the new scheme and while it wasn’t a vintage year, it ended up being one of the most consistent years Alabama has put up in awhile. The last poor defensive effort? Maybe parts of the South Carolina game; otherwise, one has to go back to Vanderbilt or even the second half of the Georgia game. For reference, the most recent of those (USC) was a game played on Oct. 12. Against Michigan, Alabama allowed just 190 total yards and thwarted three of four first-half drives that started deep in Bama’s own territory due to turnovers and miscues. Michigan didn’t present a significant passing threat, to be sure, but Bama cut the Wolverines’ production on the ground almost by half compared to January’s meeting in the College Football Playoff. All things considered, this was one of the most impressive defensive showings in years, made even more impressive when one considers Alabama lost its best defender, LB Jihaad Campbell, early in the second half. Campbell had accumulated 11 tackles in the first half; his replacement, Jeremiah Alexander, recorded just 1 tackle in the second half. Yet Alabama still held the Wolverines to 3 second-half points.
2. DL had one of its best games of the year, and younger players led the charge. James Smith had his best game in a Bama uniform and with Tim Smith’s eligibility exhausted, he’ll get plenty of opportunities in 2025 to show out. The name of the day, though, may have been redshirt freshman Jeremiah Beaman, who was playing in place of Damon Payne and who spent a lot of time getting penetration into the Michigan backfield. Beaman finished with just 2 tackles, but a lot of plays couldn’t get started due to his presence, and he redirected Michigan running backs and helped bring a lot of interior pressure. If Bama can convince Tim Keenan to return for his senior year, the middle of the Tide defense has the potential to be a strength of the team.
3. Milroe’s performance highlighted the need for improvement at the position. It’s not that Jalen Milroe can’t be an effective college quarterback – he’s proven too many times, against too many good teams, that he can be a dangerous weapon there – but DeBoer’s offense demands a blend of touch, field vision, arm strength and accuracy, and Milroe only has one of those traits (arm strength) at a level above average. Germie Bernard in particular could have had a monster day against Michigan had Milroe seen him running to grass on several different plays. Aside from the touchdown throw to Robbie Ouzts, Milroe couldn’t diagnose the Wolverines’ midrange defense properly and get the tight ends really involved in the game. The other issue for Milroe is that despite his unquestioned ability to run the ball, he struggles with zone-read plays and isn’t intuitive in the RPO scheme. These were well-known shortcomings headed into the year; most assumed he’d get better under DeBoer’s tutelage … but he didn’t. At Washington, Michael Penix had better arm strength than Milroe but not by much; the difference was in how Penix read the field and could anticipate receivers coming open. Milroe never really developed those skills, and in at least three of Alabama’s four losses, Alabama ran into defenses capable of exploiting the gaps.
4. Another poor game from Alabama’s offensive tackles highlights the need for new personnel there, too. Kadyn Proctor got pulled after a terrible first half but in his defense, he tried to play injured. Elijah Pritchett actually appeared to have an easier time at left tackle in the second half than he did right tackle in the first, and Wilkin Formby did about as well as he could given the amount of pressure Michigan was committing on passing downs. The problem here is that neither Proctor nor Pritchett had good 2024 seasons, neither is a particularly good systematic fit for the offense and in Proctor’s case, he played with too much weight and too many injuries. Alabama has a commitment from Kam Dewberry in the transfer portal, but Dewberry is projected by most to be a guard, a spot where Alabama has some depth. Alabama’s top priority for the remainder of portal season, now and in the post-spring opening, is finding someone who can compete for a starting job at one of the two tackle spots and maybe two someones. Elsewhere, RG Jaeden Roberts got hurt again, but it appeared Bama got better in pass protection after Geno VanDeMark came in to replace him, anyway. A significant portion of Milroe’s struggles at quarterback were directly attributable to the struggles of the line, especially the tackles. For basically all of the last two years, Alabama’s OT situation has been borderline at best.
5. Bama needs a rethink on its running game design. Jam Miller got 27 yards on 10 carries, not what Bama needs at that spot. The leading rusher was actually receiver Rico Scott on an end-around. Richard Young had a couple of nice carries, then disappeared. What’s going on here may be a combination of several factors – offensive line struggles, Milroe’s inability to check into/out of a specific play, RB talent, etc. – but whatever it turns out to be, it has to be fixed. Alabama can’t compete for a championship without a better running game, especially from its running backs. It’s always scary at this level when a team is led in rushing by its quarterback, which Alabama was in 2024. Alabama had its moments in 2024, and maybe as Alabama gets more dangerous in the passing game, the running game will open up as teams have to respect the pass more. But either way, this is something that DeBoer, Nick Sheridan and other coaches need to huddle on before the start of spring ball. The running game either has to take better advantage of its opportunities, or it has to be able to deliver on its own merits. Too frequently in 2024, Alabama did neither.
Follow Jess Nicholas on X at @TideFansJessN