After 17 years of Nick Saban's famed process and his teams always seeming to be "dialed in" to the right things at the right times, it came as a bit of a shock to Alabama football fans to hear the comments made by reserve OL Roq Montgomery.
Montgomery pulled back the curtain on a lack of discipline from last season's Crimson Tide in an interview on The Bama Standard podcast.
“You can’t be late to workouts no more. No more jewelry. No more necklaces. None of that. It’s not a fashion show. It’s football," said Montgomery.
Montgomery's comments, of course, allude to the fact that being late to workouts last season was an accepted practice. That has raised questions about DeBoer's ability to be a disciplinarian moving forward, something that is a must as a college football coach.
I think those concerns are overblown. At least for now.
Because of how successful Saban's run at the Capstone was, it's easy to forget how challenging his own first season on the job was. The 2007 team wasn't as talented as the team DeBoer inherited in 2024, but it wasn't devoid of it, either.
Saban had a returning QB with starting experience in John Parker Wilson. He had talented WRs in DJ Hall and Keith Brown. Andre Smith and Antoine Caldwell were studs on the offensive line. The defense was young but featured quality veterans like Rashad Johnson and Wallace Gillberry.
That team started the season 6-2 and that included a thrilling win over Arkansas in September and a blowout win over Tennessee.
Alabama gave eventual National Champion LSU all they wanted in Tuscaloosa before the Bengal Tigers ultimately pulled out a 41-34 win despite the Crimson Tide's best effort of an upset. Alabama collapsed after that.
Alabama lost in Starkville the following week to Mississippi State and then suffered the single-most embarrassing loss in program history to Louisiana Monroe. It all culminated with a sixth consecutive loss in the Iron Bowl the following week.
That team had a lot of issues. WR DJ Hall was cancerous to the locker room and unwilling to accept the new regime's way of doing things after playing the previous three seasons for Mike Shula. It was problematic for Saban because Hall was also his best player.
Saban handed out discipline to Hall, suspending him for the UL Monroe game. Saban changed his mind at halftime of a tie game and played Hall for the second half just to lose the game anyway. Does that sound like someone who has firm control of his team?
Of course, it all changed in 2008 when the roster was completely flipped from the Shula era, and the team was either recruited by or held over by Saban. It was fully his roster. The rest is history. Alabama went undefeated in the regular season in 08 and that team laid the foundation for the dynasty that was to come.
Kalen DeBoer is not Nick Saban. Expecting him to be is setting him up for failure. For all intents and purposes, Saban is the greatest coach in the history of the sport. And yet, even his transition and taking over a locker room that wasn't his didn't go off without a hitch.
DeBoer has plenty of time to right the ship. It's a positive thing to hear from Montgomery that the screws are being tightened on the players and they are being held to a higher standard again. It's even more positive to hear there are players like Montgomery who welcome it.
2024 saw DeBoer coaching Saban's team. Sure, there were a few sprinkles of DeBoer's guys in there with a handful of Washington transfers - Germie Bernard, Parker Brailsford, Josh Cuevas, etc., finding their way onto the field.
But it was a team mostly assembled by Saban, and DeBoer had precious little time to do anything except hold the roster together as best as he could. He did that the only way he knew how. The results were ultimately disappointing with the 9-4 finish, but the roster turnover could have been a lot worse than it was.
DeBoer needed some sort of proof of concept to sell to recruits that Alabama wasn't going to fall off without Saban. The win over Georgia in September was good enough. Any doubts recruits still had were erased by the shellacking Alabama gave LSU in Baton Rouge.
The loss to Oklahoma was disappointing. So too was the bowl game against Michigan. But minds had been made up by then.
2025 will see DeBoer coach his own team in Tuscaloosa. He has flipped the roster and brought in the personnel that he wants. He has a full recruiting class that is his joining the fray. The Saban holdovers are guys DeBoer likes and thinks can fit what he wants to do. The ones who didn't fit left this offseason without much of a fuss.
I'm willing to give DeBoer a mulligan for year one. There was a lot going on behind the scenes, a lot of which none of us will ever even know about.
But the honeymoon is over and the excuses no longer fly. 2024 was year zero. 2025 puts DeBoer officially on the clock as the Alabama coach.