As the season continues for the Alabama Crimson Tide, Alabama began the season with a devastating 31-17 loss on the road against the Florida State Seminoles. However, the bad news continued after a defensive lineman went down with an injury. Unfortunately, this will shake up the line for the rest of the season.
Alabama Loses a Big Piece Along the Defensive Line
Alabama Begins the Season Harshly
In games in which the Tide were favored to win by 14 or more, Nick Saban was 131-2. Kalen DeBoer is 4-4. DeBoer failed massively last season with losses against teams he could have easily beaten, including the mediocre Vanderbilt Commodores, Michigan Wolverines, and Oklahoma Sooners. This season, the Crimson Tide opened as big favorites on the road against the formerly 2-10 FSU, and lost in ugly fashion over the weekend.
Alabama is now #21 and risking a fall out of the Top 25 without showing up and showing out in the next few weeks. The Tide takes on the UL Monroe Warhawks in Week 2, the Wisconsin Badgers in Week 3, and the Georgia Bulldogs in Week 4. Some of these games could be easy to win, considering UL Monroe is UL Monroe and Wisconsin is extremely mediocre. However, this season could mark the first time in forever that Alabama falls out of the Top 25.
DL Jeremiah Beaman Out for Season After Injury During Practice
The bad news, unfortunately, doesn’t end there for DeBoer and the Tide. Jeremiah Beaman, who many expected to break out this season, will no longer see the field for Alabama. DeBoer claimed that Beaman was “progressing really well”. However, this doesn’t mean much in terms of what will happen this season with Beaman. This injury won’t hurt the Crimson Tide as much as other teams, considering the backups are highly touted prospects themselves.
However, inexperience is anything but what the Tide wants right now. Not just because of who Alabama is playing over the next few weeks, but also because of the fact that the Tide needs huge victories over smaller teams. An unimpressive win against UL Monroe or someone else is only more worrying for the fanbase, and something that won’t end well for DeBoer. With D-Line now in worse condition, Alabama needs to address the problems that FSU gave them.
The reality is that the dual-threat QB Tommy Castellanos destroyed Bama on the ground. There is no doubt that in these next weeks the Tide needs to address this issue majorly.
Alabama Proving to Be Too Much for Kalen DeBoer?
Is it ridiculous to claim that coach could get fired two seasons into his tenure? For most teams yes, but for a team that made the playoff almost every season with Saban. DeBoer will be on the hot seat this season if he underperforms, because Alabama expects more than the Washington Huskies do. Just like Nebraska or Texas many years ago, the Crimson Tide is likely to quickly let go of coaches if it experiences losses against Vandy or FSU.
With that being said, DeBoer has a lot of work to do this season. Sure, Alabama can still do a lot of “great things” this season. However, in Alabama, this might not be enough. Overall, this begins in a very disappointing way for the dynastic Bama. The injury to Beaman only makes things worse, and in order to fix things up, much work has to be done.
This season isn’t over for Alabama, even if they lose to Georgia. However, losing your first game is never a good thing, and piling an injury on that can be very difficult to recover from. It will be very interesting to see how things go in Tallahassee this season.
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