Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer just gave fans a reason to run him out of town if the Crimson Tide don’t meet expectations in 2026

Kalen DeBoer is entering his third season as the head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide. DeBoer and the Crimson Tide reached the College Football Playoff in year two, but they were eliminated by Indiana in the quarterfinals.

Zach Ragan — Tennessee Volunteers News Writer
Add as preferred source on Google
Tennessee Vols vs Alabama Crimson Tide
Saul Young/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK

Kalen DeBoer has done an incredible job during his first two seasons as the head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide.

DeBoer went 9-4 in his first season in the SEC in 2024, coming up just short of reaching the College Football Playoff.

Alabama then took a step forward in DeBoer’s second season, going 11-4 in 2025 with a win over the Oklahoma Sooners in the first round of the playoff (Bama was eliminated by Indiana in the quarterfinals).

It feels like Alabama has some positive momentum going into year three of the DeBoer era, but expectations are always high in Tuscaloosa. That’s why, fair or not, it’s another playoff or bust season for DeBoer and the Tide.

Kalen DeBoer just gave fans a reason to run him out of town if Alabama doesn’t meet expectations in 2026

Despite DeBoer’s solid start in Tuscaloosa, there seem to be plenty of fans who still aren’t all-in on the former Washington Huskies head coach.

That’s mostly because DeBoer is following legendary head coach Nick Saban. And DeBoer is almost certainly never going to achieve the level of success at Alabama that Saban did (that’s not a knock on DeBoer — I don’t think we’ll ever see another Saban-like run in college football as long as the NIL/transfer portal continues to operate with no real structure).

If Alabama struggles with some adversity in 2026 and the Tide miss the playoff, there are going to be fans ready to move on from DeBoer. We all know that it only takes a small group of fans to create enough noise to threaten a coach’s job security.

DeBoer unwisely gave that small group of fans some ammo to use in the event that Bama falls short in 2026.

The South Dakota native bragged to On3’s Chris Low this week about not overpaying for players out of the transfer portal.

“In particular, he (DeBoer) thinks the Tide were able to spend wisely and not overpay on players,” wrote Low.

“A lot of the guys we added are better than what we had, and we got them for a lot less money,” said DeBoer.

I’m not saying DeBoer’s comments are wrong — I think he truly believes that Alabama spent its money wisely in the portal. And I’m not going to suggest otherwise. DeBoer, after all, knows those players better than I do, so I’ll take his word for it.

But if Alabama comes up short this fall, there will be fans who want to fire him. And I have no doubt that those fans will weaponize DeBoer’s “lot less money” quote in an attempt to run him out of town. We’ve seen it before with college fan bases — when a team falls short, fans immediately point to their usage of the portal as a reason for the failure. It will happen with DeBoer if Alabama doesn’t get to the playoff.

There was no need for DeBoer to brag about spending less money. Fans don’t care if you got a couple of bargains or saved the big-money donors a few bucks. They just want wins. And if those wins don’t come, you’ll see some Dollar Store DeBoer signs start popping up in Alabama.

Related Articles