Alabama built up a lot of goodwill over the first six weeks of the season. From the 5-0 start, and even the close and controversial loss to Georgia last week. Kalen DeBoer's response in the fourth quarter last week won over a lot of the Crimson Tide fans who remained on the fence in year three of his tenure.
Every bit of that goodwill was forfeited on Saturday.
Alabama lost its second straight game, the first two-game losing streak in the regular season for the Crimson Tide since 2007.
The biggest kryptonite of the DeBoer era reared its ugly head once again. The team looked totally unprepared to play in Knoxville. They were discombobulated from the opening snap. The defense kept them alive as long as they could, but the offense's inability to do literally anything positive was too much to overcome.
Now, Alabama is 5-2 after a 5-0 start, and has zero margin for error over the final five weeks of the regular season.
Alabama's College Football Playoff hopes took a devastating blow in pitiful performance at Tennessee
But who cares at this point, right? Did Alabama look like a team that belonged anywhere near the College Football Playoff? To put it mildly: hell no.
Alabama's troubles started right away. They didn't gain positive yardage until their FOURTH OFFENSIVE DRIVE. Keelon Russell fumbled away the first possession, setting up a second Tennessee field goal.
Alabama's one singular touchdown they scored came because of a Vols mistake. Ivan Taylor picked off George MacIntyre on a tipped pass that led to a Russell touchdown run. That was the one spark of life the offense showed, and it was set up inside the redzone thanks to the defense.
Alabama had just 149 yards of offense until effectively garbage time, with Tennessee leading 26-10.
This isn't anything new under DeBoer. Every year, there's a game or two or three where Alabama just looks completely unprepared to play. There was Vanderbilt, Oklahoma, and the bowl loss to Michigan in year one. There was Florida State in the opener last year. And now there's Tennessee in 2026, just when popular sentiment was starting to change about DeBoer as the Tide's coach.
Every bit of optimism that Alabama fans have felt in the three seasons DeBoer has been the Tide's head coach has quickly been replaced with a performance like this. The Vanderbilt loss in 2024 followed an upset home win over Georgia. The loss to Florida State came after an offseason of hopefulness. The game after Alabama beat Oklahoma in the playoff last year, they were emasculated by Indiana in the Rose Bowl.
And then, following a close loss to Georgia, where it looked like Alabama had closed the gap on being a true title contender, they played arguably the worst overall game in DeBoer's three seasons as the head coach.
With a road game left at LSU and a suddenly competent Auburn team looming in the Iron Bowl, it's tough to have that much optimism that the Crimson Tide is going to run the table to get into the playoff.
Year three of the DeBoer era sure looks a lot like years one and two.
Add us as a preferred source on Google