No matter the stakes, the Iron Bowl is always a big game. This year, though, at least on the Alabama side, the stakes might be as high as ever. Heading into the game with two losses and one in SEC play, Alabama is facing a win-and-in proposition for the SEC Championship Game, and that’s probably the case for the College Football Playoff as well.
Still, that’s not the only thing on the line at Jordan-Hare Stadium on Saturday night. There’s also, potentially, Kalen DeBoer’s future in Alabama. With his black hoodie and eight-game win streak, he won the fan base over, but the vitriol he faced after a Week 1 upset loss to Florida State bubbled back to the surface following a home loss at Oklahoma in Week 12.
Last season, the collapse came in the penultimate week of the regular season, a 24-3 loss to the Sooners in Norman that kept Alabama out of the CFP. If that happens for the second-straight season, this time with a loss to a 5-6 Auburn team that fired Hugh Freeze midseason, DeBoer may not survive it.
An Iron Bowl loss could open a world of possibilities for Alabama and Kalen DeBoer
Alabama fans would actually need to win the lottery to pay his buyout, so no matter what, DeBoer won’t be fired. To be clear, that’s also the right decision, regardless of how the Iron Bowl plays out. He’s still a quality coach who has a flawed team on the cusp of the SEC Title Game, and he deserves a bit of a runway to reach the national championship.
I think most rational people would agree that you shouldn’t make a coaching decision based on one game; that’s short-sighted and bad process, but we can all agree that in college football, there aren’t always many rational people, and decisions get made that way all the time.
So, while a loss will not put DeBoer on the chopping block, he could walk out the door under his own volition. Penn State’s coaching search has been eerily quiet in recent weeks, and the general message board theory and rumors out of Penn State is that they’re waiting to see if DeBoer loses the Iron Bowl and hoping the South Dakota native decides that the SEC isn’t for him.
Maybe it’s far-fetched, but that’s how monumental this Iron Bowl feels. It could be a real inflection point in program history. The Tide are one win from Atlanta and their first 12-team CFP appearance under DeBoer. But, they could also be a loss away from entering the Lane Kiffin sweepstakes.
That’s another problem. If DeBoer would decide to head for Happy Valley, Alabama would then enter a coaching cycle that already includes LSU, Florida, and Auburn. You would think the Crimson Tide would get top billing over those recently downtrodden programs, but entering the race so late, that’s not a guarantee.
The good news is, we’ll never have to find out how much validity any of those hypothetical DeBoer to Penn State theories have to them if Alabama just handles its business on The Plains.