Alabama Football may have serious problems, but they have nothing to do with discipline, culture or coaching attire.
Alabama loses to Vanderbilt, what’s next for the Crimson Tide? | Joel Klatt Show
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This is an opinion piece. As an Alabama Football fan, I realize other Crimson Tide fans may have different opinions, and my one voice is just that; one voice. Vandy’s upset of the Alabama Crimson Tide has the college football world spinning. No doubt a large majority of not-Alabama fans relish any slip-up by the Crimson Tide.
Attention is easily drawn whenever a well-known individual or entity fails. Alabama’s loss to Vanderbilt was a failure; an inexcusable one. Some can say that with the expanded CFB playoff format, one regular season loss means little. There is some truth to that opinion. There is also an opposite perspective. I thank Michael Southern for tweeting what Gene Stallings said about losing: “If you think there is such a thing as an unimportant game, just try losing one.”
Stalling knew the magnitude of Alabama losses before he lost his first game as the Crimson Tide head coach. He learned as an assistant coach for Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant. Stallings began his Alabama head coach tenure by going 0-3 at the start of the 1990 season. Many Alabama fans panicked. Stallings kept working and the result was a 1992 National Championship. After Saturday, Kalen DeBoer knows exactly what losses mean at Alabama. He will keep working as well and hopefully, like Stallings, DeBoer will build another Alabama National Championship team.
Alabama Football Burden
Measuring a program’s success almost solely by national championships is a heavy burden. But in Tuscaloosa, that burden is an appropriate reality. I don’t know if Kalen DeBoer will or will not win a national championship at Alabama. The not knowing is a worry. What does not worry me are three things currently dominating conversations about the Crimson Tide. One is what Kalen DeBoer wears on the sideline, and whether his shirt is tucked in. No portion of a coach’s attention should be distracted by the attire fans do or do not like.
Much more serious is the debate over disciplining Malachi Moore. What Moore did near the end of the Vandy game is unacceptable. What the Alabama football staff does about Moore’s unacceptable actions is not the business of fans. I have zero problem with no suspension. DeBoer’s explanation is enough for me. “We’ve have handled it, and I’m just going to say this about Malachi. What he did, he has gone above and in taking ownership of it. …he’s had my and our back since day one. And there comes a point too where sometimes as things play out, you gotta have your guys back as well.”
Those like Paul Finebaum who are suddenly jumping on an Alabama Football has a culture problem, can just … this platform’s editorial standards do not allow me to finish the sentence. Conflating one example of bad judgment by a player into a claim the program has a culture problem is nonsense.
