COLUMN: Embracing Great Expectations In The Kalen DeBoer Era

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I was personally excited once I knew more about who we were getting. But I’m not so biased as to overlook the displeasure expressed by a decent minority of the base.

Still, shivering in the cold at the Tuscaloosa National Airport and then sitting in Bryant-Denny Stadium for Kalen DeBoer’s introductory press conference the next day, the initial feelings on the faces of those around me showed nothing but excitement and optimism.

The guy has won everywhere he’s been.

Plain and simple.

And after all, Saban is still very much alive, was seated on the front row of the press conference and has already moved into a new office in Bryant-Denny to serve in a kind of advisory/coach emeritus role. What that will mean is still very much yet to be seen, but it should provide at least some degree of comfort to the Tide faithful.

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When the crowds finally dispersed last weekend, though, it brought to a close arguably the shortest honeymoon period in the history of college sports — ushering into its place all of the expectations that come with the job and chaos the likes of which some Alabama football fans have never seen in their lifetimes.

I’ve had the honor of interviewing former Crimson Tide head coach Bill Curry on a couple of occasions and have a high degree of respect for the man who was the coach when I was born in 1989. In the time since, I toddled around the floor as Gene Stallings returned us to glory then learned the game in the years that followed by watching some of the most abysmal, scandal-ridden football in recent memory.

There were good moments sprinkled in here and there, sure: Shaun Alexander, Tyrone Prothro, Brodie Croyle, DeMeco Ryans and Northport’s own Le’Ron McClain. For the most part, though, it was an anemic and grossly underperforming era for a once-elite program.

Then Coach Saban walked off that plane.

As someone whose Gump résumé includes being born at Druid City Hospital, I’ve seen plenty of names come and go in my time: DuBose, Franchione, Price, Shula.

Well before idioms like “The Standard” and “The Process” entered our everyday vocabulary in Tuscaloosa, this beleaguered stretch saw the prestige somewhat fade regarding the position of Alabama head football coach — especially the damage dealt to the program’s reputation by Mike Price’s very brief tenure.

Apart from the turbulence off the field and lashings from the NCAA, Alabama lost to perennial non-conference cupcakes like Louisiana Tech (TWICE), UCLA (TWICE), Southern Miss, Central Florida, Northern Illinois and … Hawaii.

The expectations from those in the stands dulled, but never really wavered, and when Coach Saban landed at the Tuscaloosa Municipal Airport in 2007, we knew things were going to change. Hell, at that point, we expected things to change.

Saban was the man for the job and had the tenacity and vision to return Alabama to the ranks of college football’s blue-bloods. And friends, he delivered.

Fast-forward 17 glorious years and we’ve found ourselves in a completely different place with a new name leading the program — a name many had never heard of before last Friday when he was announced as Saban’s successor.

“It really is like most other situations where there is a great person, a great leader, someone who has excelled and knocked it out of the park and here you come to follow this person,” Coach Curry told me in a phone interview Saturday morning after I reached out for his perspective regarding the general expectations around such an iconic job.

A two-time Pro Bowl center and a three-time NFL champion who played in the very first Super Bowl, Coach Curry is no stranger to the weight of illustrious expectations, even going back to his playing days at Georgia Tech and early in his career with the Green Bay Packers.

While playing in Green Bay, for example, Coach Curry followed in the footsteps of 10-time Pro Bowler Jim Ringo — one of the greatest offensive linemen in the game’s history. And once he entered the coaching ranks, he eventually followed his legendary college coach, Bobby Dodd, at Georgia Tech.

Curry mostly lived up to expectations in the face of some pretty tough odds, even winning ACC Coach of the Year in 1985 when he led the Ramblin’ Wreck to a 9–2–1 record.

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After the exodus of Bear Bryant’s replacement Ray Perkins at Alabama, Curry then became the next promising coach tasked with trying to build upon the legacy of the most iconic coach in the sport’s history less than a decade after his death — something Curry would have to do again at Kentucky after being relieved of his coaching duties in Tuscaloosa.

For this reporter and Tuscaloosa native, Coach Curry, now 81, is arguably the most under-appreciated coach in the annals of Crimson Tide lore. He posted a 26–10 mark over three seasons at Alabama, leading the team to three bowl games, including the 1990 Sugar Bowl that capped off his final game on the sidelines for the Tide.

Enter those pesky expectations, though.

Despite coaching Derrick Thomas during the prime of his college career and taking the Tide to New Orleans on New Year’s Day 1990, he lost to Auburn all three seasons and that’s pretty much all it took for the fanbase and, subsequently, the administration to demand a change. Just a short time later, though, several of those same players recruited by Coach Curry were on the roster when Alabama won the 1992 national championship under Gene Stallings.

“There was always this legendary figure hovering over me like a shadow, but it can be like a light and be an inspiration,” Coach Curry told me. “I wanted to make it a positive thing and when I started coaching at a place like Alabama, I thought it was a terrific competitive advantage for us. I think it’s a positive if you have a tremendous competitive expectation all through the stands and the state. Everybody feels it.”

Curry certainly felt those lofty expectations as a player and a coach. But after being mentored by greats like Vince Lombardi, Don Shula and Bart Starr, he could see the true value in embracing the pressure, even if things didn’t always go how he would have liked.

This is where fanbases play a more important role than many may realize. And to the credit of the Crimson Tide faithful, calls for participation in Alabama’s NIL collective Yea Alabama has seen approximately 1,400 new members sign up since the curtain fell on the Nick Saban Era.

But the Alabama fanbase, as I’ve seen my entire life and have written about extensively, can be a fickle group of good folks who tended in the pre-Saban years to be short on patience. It’s an attitude we saw resurrected in the hours and days that followed the Tide’s 34-24 loss to Texas early on during the 2023 campaign.

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“The students and the fans and the players who were influenced positively by the Alabama tradition are usually the ones who think they own it and you have to win the way they want you to win,” Coach Curry told me. “They can create issues but this is true everywhere. Folks who are possessive of the program say things and, whether it’s in Green Bay, Georgia Tech or Alabama, they expect to win. And when they don’t, they are disappointed. But nobody wins every game. That sometimes becomes a burden, but I think it’s a competitive advantage. We know what’s expected of us.”

This was a sentiment echoed by Kalen DeBoer and Alabama Director of Athletics Greg Byrne during the new coach’s first interactions with local media last Saturday.

To paraphrase Byrne, he wanted a coach who viewed being Saban’s successor as the opportunity of a lifetime and DeBoer seems genuinely up to the challenge — regardless of what you think about the recent bleeding out of talent via the NCAA Transfer Portal.

As DeBoer told syndicated radio personality Paul Finebaum on Friday, he plans to “stay the course” and I think that’s a bit of perspective many of us dyed-in-the-wool Gumps could benefit from.

I’ve had the honor of standing on high school sidelines and sitting in on Rotary meetings with the legendary Buddy Stephens — the fiery, polarizing and highly successful head football coach at East Mississippi Community College who was featured prominently on the Netflix docuseries “Last Chance U.”

With an overall record of 133-21 and five NJCAA national championship rings, his coaching tree has expanded over the years but saw football minds like Alabama defensive line coach Freddie Roach and Texas Longhorns quarterbacks coach AJ Milwee get their coaching starts in Scooba, Mississippi. He also said he taught Georgia Athletic Director Josh Brooks at Hammond High School in Louisiana.

Coach Stephens grew up in Huntsville and has a dog named Bama. He was raised on Alabama football and has since worked with and produced SEC coaches for the better part of two decades.

“There are no more Sabans,” Coach Stephens told me. “Everybody needs to take a chill pill. My guy Freddie Roach is there. That shows [DeBoer] knows what he’s doing by retaining a guy like him. The expectations of a job at Alabama are probably unreasonable because you’ve got so many things changing, so many interchangeable parts, and somebody you’re following that’s legendary. [Saban] had his staff set, roster set and now all of that is changing. People are going to put it under a microscope no matter what you do and wonder if they got it right.”

Coach Stephens was also quick to remind this Alabama fan not just of the lean years in between Stallings and Saban, but of LSU’s own plight before Saban arrived in Baton Rouge and exercised herculean authority to turn around a floundering program.

“There was a time when Saban was at Alabama and LSU where he needed to get everything together to win,” he explained. “I think the expectations should be tempered, but I know for fans of college football, folks aren’t going to give you the kind of time. I think with the pay the coaches get now, people aren’t going to give you a lot of time.”

Regardless of the bigger picture, Coach Stephens believes Kalen DeBoer is a winner who, like the EMCC head coach, has had to earn his way to this moment.

“He’s been where he had to hand out the hamburgers,” he said. “Saban has been there, too, but [DeBoer] is not Saban 2.0. He is DeBoer 1.0.”

I’ve written about my friend, neighbor, longtime Alabama football staffer and walking Crimson Tide encyclopedia Gary White several times. After all, his mind is a steel trap and he is one the few still alive who can say he started his career at the University of Alabama in 1957 — the year before Bryant answered ‘Mama’s Call’ and left Texas A&M for Tuscaloosa.

White is also quite familiar with the expectations placed on arguably the most coveted job in college football and has bore witness to so much good and bad over the decades.

“Everybody expects excellence, but if you can’t be excellent, you can reach for it and that’s the number one goal,” White told me. “With the players and coaches performing at a championship level, it’s been a tradition to do that since Wallace Wade was the head coach here. Some coaches haven’t achieved that, but Coach Bryant set the tone for everything to come and even Coach Saban has said that [about Bryant], even with the things he has achieved since.”

White then pointed out how Saban, instead of cracking under the pressure, used Bryant’s legacy as fuel when laying the foundation for his own iconic era at Alabama.

There’s a phrase I heard once that argued the Seattle grunge band Nirvana did for music in three years what it took Led Zeppelin to do in a decade. To me, something similar can be said about Coach Saban coming along years after The Bear and it’s one hell of a thing to have to follow up.

“Coach Bryant set the bar high for everyone who came after him and Coach Saban came in and he didn’t back down from it,” White said. “He embraced the fact that Coach Bryant had been the head coach here and set the bar really high for the team. Coach Saban carried it on and now DeBoer came in. He seems like he knows what it’s about and knows what to expect. He had a championship team up there in Washington, so he already knows about winning championships.”

Trying to make sense of expectations in college football can be a maddening business and is likely a pretty futile gesture for a townie reporter like me. But Coach Curry provided an interesting analogy that gives this longtime Gump plenty to think about.

The brief yarn begins with a little boy asking his Mama for ice cream and, upon receiving it almost immediately, assumes that his words alone manifested the frozen treat.

“The little boy doesn’t realize all that goes into it,” Coach Curry said with a laugh. “Mom has to be in a good mood, the ice cream shop has to be open and everything has to go just right for that little boy to get that ice cream cone.”

Ryan Phillips is an award-winning journalist, editor and opinion columnist. He is also the founder and field editor of Tuscaloosa Patch. The opinions expressed in this column are in no way a reflection of our parent company or sponsors. Email news tips to [email protected].

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