Coming down the stretch of the regular season, Alabama sophomore placekicker Conor Talty has found himself caught in Alabama fans' crosshairs. Talty’s ugly miss in a two-point loss to Oklahoma, and his ensuing tirade at his holder on the field at Bryant-Denny Stadium, got the fanbase’s frustrations up, and after another miss in Week 13 against Eastern Illinois, they let them out.
Talty was showered with boos following a first-half 28-yard misfire, his eighth missed field goal of the season. Then, when he came out for an extra point later in the half, he was met with another flock of boo birds. As if it were possible to miss them, Kalen DeBoer addressed the fanbase’s displeasure in his postgame press conference, reaffirming his belief in Talty.
Talty’s teammates also took notice of the boos and senior wide receiver Germie Bernard wasn’t happy about them.
“That was really classless,” Bernard told The Next Round, “They shouldn’t be doing that man, regardless of whether he’s making field goals or not.”
Germie Bernard isn’t happy with fans booing Conor Talty
The conversation about fans booing collegiate athletes is as nuanced as ever because players who were once student-athletes, forbidden by the NCAA from receiving financial compensation for their talents, now, in most cases, especially at the Power Confernece level, they’re handsomely paid.
Fans pour money into the program, which, through revenue-sharing, is now funneled directly to the athletes, not terribly dissimilar from professional sports. If you’re spending your hard-earned money on a product that, in your view, is unsatisfactory, then it’s hard to argue that, as a fan, you don’t have a right to voice that displeasure.
Should that ever rise to the level of hateful speech, threats, or any of the vile interactions that are on the rise in sports, largely due to the proliferation and access to sports gambling? No. Of course not. Booing, though, has always been a part of sports, and one way for a fanbase to make its voice heard.
So, do Alabama fans have a right to boo Talty or any player or coach that they view as falling below their expectations, within reason? I think so. Now, “should,” as Bernard put it, Alabama fans be booing their kicker a week before the Iron Bowl with the SEC Championship Game and College Football Playoff right around the corner, probably not.
It’s clear that DeBoer has no better options at the position. If he had them, he would have tried them by now. A crucial miss in a two-point conference loss is more incentive to make a change than a booing fanbase in a 56-0 win a week later.
In actuality, booing, particularly booing a specific player whom the fanbase wants benched, seldom yields the intended results. What it does help to do is further erode the already shaken confidence of the struggling player.
Savvy fanbases have figured this out before. In 2023, highly-paid shortstop Trea Turner’s first year with the Philadelphia Phillies, he was mired in a brutal slump at the plate. So, known to be easily agitated, Philadelphia fans flipped the script, meeting every Turner at-bat with a rousing ovation. Did it lead to his turnaround that season and the second National League batting title of his career just two years later, probably not directly, but it didn’t hurt.
Alabama fans may not get that opportunity with the final game of the regular season taking place at Jordan-Hare Stadium. But, as corny as it seems and disingenuous as it feels, if the Tide end up with a home playoff game in the first round of the CFP, it could be worth a shot.