With just a day and a half until the No. 9 Alabama Crimson Tide and the No. 8 Oklahoma Sooners kicked off the first game of this season's College Football Playoff, a lot of people were talking about the coaching carousel and not the game itself.
The job opening at Michigan was still looming overhead, and Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer was still the main focus for the Wolverines' replacement.
While it's always infuriating to hear your head coach tied to other programs, especially as your team prepares for a massive postseason matchup, one college football analyst believes the Crimson Tide crowd might treat this one a little differently.
Alabama fans might be nice if Kalen DeBoer loses to Oklahoma
College football fans are some of the most divisive and hate-filled folks around, continuously finding blame to place on anybody but their own team. Whether that be a head coach, the officials, or some higher power, fans refuse to believe their team was ever supposed to actually lose.
However, Josh Pate, a long-standing college football analyst, believes that Alabama fans might not treat DeBoer to the usual hate-filled rhetoric that fanbases usually tap into when their head coach loses or leaves for another team.
"It would be a normal 'Bama outrage if they lose the game," Pate said on ESPN's First Take. "If they lose this game... the 'Bama fans, there's this thing mentally, they know the Michigan job is still there."
Pate went on to say that even with the loss and the gut instinct for Alabama supporters to criticize the Tide's head coach, the Tide crowd might hold off in fear that their ruthlessness could scare DeBoer right out the door.
"The Bama fans ... they know the Michigan job is still there."@JoshPateCFB thinks Alabama fans might not criticize Kalen DeBoer with their normal venom 👀 pic.twitter.com/qDvYEM44R1
— First Take (@FirstTake) December 18, 2025
Even ESPN's Ryan Clark said that "they might have to, in some way, placate toward [DeBoer] or be a little more gentle" while clarifying Pate's message.
So, while Alabama fans might be as upset as ever if the Crimson Tide loses to Oklahoma in the opening round of the playoffs, they also might find a way to place blame on anyone other than DeBoer so that he feels a little more welcome in Tuscaloosa than other coaches who lose big games.