Spouting outlandish claims pays well in today's media world. Doing so has paid off handsomely for Paul Finebaum and Clay Travis. Being untethered by truth is apparently a path to fame. Unlike Travis, Finebaum sometimes does credible work. His frequent negative takes on Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer are not Finebaum's best work. Doubting DeBoer is low-hanging fruit. Predicting he will fail in Tuscaloosa is no more credible than me claiming Alabama will win the 2026 National Championship.
Finebaum has made a long, successful career by picking at the scabs of others. Doing so obscures his skill as an interviewer, which is considerable.
Finebaum's latest attack on Kalen DeBoer is that the Crimson Tide head coach will fail in Tuscaloosa because "he doesn't talk the language" that Alabama football fans demand to hear. Mark me down as one unconcerned about DeBoer's lack of eloquence. Sure, compare him to a wordsmith like Nick Saban, and DeBoer does not come close to measuring up. So what? Les Miles was a babbling idiot in Baton Rouge, and still won a national championship. Even more revered by LSU fans is Ed Orgeron, who also won a national championship. Orgeron's voice and accent do not make him inarticulate, but most of his words are no more than Cajun-style coachspeak.
Fluency has never won a coach a national championship. Resolve has won many. If anyone has questioned Kalen DeBoer's resolve, I have missed it. He appears to have a deep reservoir of stick-to-it-ness. Can he 'X' and 'O' with college football's best? His teams before Alabama indicate that he does.
What Kalen DeBoer is and isn't
DeBoer's biggest challenge in Tuscaloosa is not what he is; it is what he isn't. He's not Nick Saban. No coach was going to follow Saban and produce Saban-like success. Toward the end, even Nick was not producing Saban-like success.
Think back to the celebration when Nick Saban said, "This is not the end; this is the beginning." How many times before that did Saban state that Alabama would win a national championship? The answer is zero. So, shoot arrows at DeBoer for not using 'Alabama language' when he was asked a national championship question at SEC Media Days. Like Finebaum, you won't know what you're talking about.
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