Some gifts are better than others. For Alabama, the Washington roster transplants brought over by Kalen DeBoer were immediate contributors. Germie Bernard, Parker Brailsford, and Josh Cuevas all found homes in Tuscaloosa and were nice gifts from the new coaching staff.
There was probably no better gift for Alabama football this year than Ryan Williams re-classifying into the 2024 recruiting class and coming to Tuscaloosa a year early.
But not all gifts are created equally. As Billy Bob Thornton said in Bad Santa: “They can’t all be winners, kid.”
Alabama football would like to return these things:
Returning: One of the three losses
Exchanging for: College Football Playoff berth
The most obvious return is one of the three losses. Take any single one of them away: the five-point loss at Vanderbilt, the seven-point loss at Tennessee, or the 21-point debacle of a loss at Oklahoma, and the Crimson Tide is playing in the College Football Playoff.
Not only that, remove one of those losses and Alabama would have played Texas in Atlanta for the SEC Championship instead of Georgia. The Tide would have been assured a spot in the playoff regardless and would have been battling the Longhorns for a first-round bye.
All three of those defeats were tough to swallow. Alabama dug themselves into a 13-0 hole against Vanderbilt immediately and lost to the ‘Dores for the first time in 40 years. Alabama had every opportunity to beat Tennessee but had a woeful offensive performance and lost in Knoxville for the second straight trip.
And if I used the word woeful to describe the offensive performance against Tennessee, I’m not sure there’s a strong enough adjective to describe the offensive ineptitude in Norman against Oklahoma. Quite frankly, it was the most pitiful performance by a Tide offense in 20 years.
I know a lot of Alabama fans were frustrated with SMU and Indiana getting into the playoff over the Crimson Tide, a fact driven further home by both the Mustangs and Hoosiers not being competitive in first-round losses, but it’s hard to be too upset when you look back at those three losses.
Returning: Receivers recruited by the previous regime/Holmon Wiggins
Exchanging for: Receivers recruited and developed by JaMarcus Shepherd
This is a return/exchange that we are actually seeing come to fruition.
It should speak volumes to the talent level and development of receivers that had happened in Tuscaloosa the last few years that in 2024 Alabama’s top two receivers were a 17-year-old who should have been a high school senior and a guy who was the No. 4 WR at Washington a year ago.
Alabama’s WR development under Holmon Wiggins had completely stalled. The days of the Ryde Outs were gone and since Jameson Williams and John Metchie left following the 2021 season, the Crimson Tide had not had a big time difference maker at receiver.
The best WR during that span was a transfer from Georgia in Jermaine Burton.
Alabama and new WR coach JaMarcus Shepherd are looking to change that, and have completely flipped the room in a year’s time. Alabama saw four players at WR enter the Transfer Portal, including three veterans in Kendrick Law, Kobe Prentice, and Emmanuel Henderson.
Alabama brought in two more WRs from the high school ranks in Derek Meadows and Lotzeir Brooks, and landed Miami (FL) transfer Isaiah Horton. The room has been rebuilt in Shepherd’s image, and we should start seeing results in 2025.
Returning: Championship expectations in 2024
Exchanging for: Championship expectations in 2025
Maybe there were unrealistic expectations for Kalen DeBoer in year one at Alabama. With everything that was lost, including the greatest coach in the history of the sport, it probably wasn’t fair to burden DeBoer and the 2024 Crimson Tide with expectations of winning a national championship.
But here’s the thing: in Tuscaloosa, that’s always the expectation. So DeBoer and company can return the expectations for a title in 2024, but they’re just going to be exchanging it for the same expectations in 2025.
Alabama fans expect their team to be the best in college football every year. DeBoer is nowhere near the hot seat at this point in time, but a second straight season of missing the College Football Playoff and not being a legitimate contender to win it all would put him squarely on it heading into 2026.
Thus is the life of the Alabama coach.
