🏈 NYT article on 'Bama - FSU

[Bamabww]

Florida State-Alabama shocker was, above all, another indictment of Kalen DeBoer​

I don’t know about you, but I totally believed Nick Saban when he took a moment Saturday, in the midst of a tremendous ESPN “GameDay” farewell to Lee Corso, to scold Florida State.

He did it not just for those who love Alabama football, but also for all levelheaded followers of the sport who cringed when FSU transfer quarterback Tommy Castellanos decided to invoke Saban’s name in goading the Crimson Tide over the summer. Bama can’t stop me, Castellanos told On3. Saban can’t save them, he said. The disrespect will be addressed, Alabama players said in response.

No doubt it will, you and I said. Perhaps not kindly.

“I’m not here to save them, I’m here to save you all,” Saban told his “GameDay” cohorts when the idea of Florida State’s upsetting No. 8 Alabama came up Saturday.

In other words, don’t even think about it. Saban went on to tell millions of viewers why this second season under his successor, Kalen DeBoer, was going to be much better. And why words like the ones Castellanos chose can be foolish and used to the advantage of the other side.

Then Florida State beat Alabama 31-17, a thorough bullying, and one of the undercards of perhaps the greatest Week 1 ever became a headliner and a spectacular opportunity for overreaction.

Kalen DeBoer has four losses at Alabama as a 14+ point favorite, in 14 games as the coach.

Nick Saban lost three of those in 139 games.

— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) August 30, 2025

Maybe it can’t match “Arch should have been a volleyball player” and other gems spinning out of Columbus, but we’ve got a wide range of things to consider after this shocker.

Like maybe Mike Norvell is going to be all right, a year removed from a 2-10 disaster, which followed up a 13-1 season that was a quarterback injury away from a shot at the whole thing. He’s good again. But seriously, his team’s physical superiority on both sides of the ball against Alabama suggests this could be a third season with double-digit wins in four years, which would make 2024 easier to dismiss as an outlier.

Like maybe going nuts in the transfer portal, as Florida State had to do again, isn’t always so bad.

Like maybe Alabama offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb’s reunion with DeBoer — a pairing that got Washington to the national championship game two seasons ago — after serving as OC with the Seattle Seahawks last season isn’t going to be as transformative as hoped.

Like maybe Gus Malzahn’s signing up to be Norvell’s OC will be. Malzahn spent the past 13 seasons as a head coach at Arkansas State, Auburn and UCF, and Saturday was a reminder of how he got there. Give that guy some players, starting with a quarterback who can really run, and watch him concoct a creative offense that tramples opponents. Mighty Bama yielded 230 yards on the ground, 4.7 per pop.

Like maybe we should let quarterbacks play before crowning or condemning them. That’s not an overreaction. It would be to say Ty Simpson definitely isn’t it for Alabama. It would be to say Castellanos is a low-key Heisman guy. But Simpson struggled, even though he has followed the path we think should maximize success — waiting his turn for three seasons at an elite program, working and developing until he got his chance.

Castellanos was brilliant, even though his past nine months sent red flags waving. He was Thomas, not Tommy, at Boston College, where he transferred after it didn’t work out at UCF under Malzahn. He got into the portal before last season ended, which BC coach Bill O’Brien said was because he lost his job, which Castellanos rebutted publicly. Then Castellanos decided to pivot in public from spatting with O’Brien to making Alabama mad.

And then he shut everyone up who thought he’d be shut up Saturday. He ran it 16 times for 78 yards and a touchdown, making it look like this offense was drawn up with him in mind. He threw it 14 times, completing nine, for 152 yards. That’s a tidy 10.9 per attempt. That’s backing up bold words.

“You need a dog in that position,” FSU safety Earl Little Jr., who transferred from Alabama in 2024, told reporters of Castellanos, reiterating that the Seminoles were behind him all the way when he made his comments.

But if Alabama was close Saturday to what it was supposed to be this season, those comments would have been brought up and quietly downplayed at a disappointed Florida State news conference.

Maybe Florida State can make a surprise College Football Playoff run this season. Certainly, Alabama was the biggest disappointment in Week 1. And there’s no maybe when it comes to the loud, ugly, earned noise around DeBoer.

He’s 9-5 now with the Crimson Tide after Alabama’s first season-opening loss since 2001. He’s 6-4 against unranked teams at Alabama; Saban was 124-4. DeBoer now has four losses as a two-touchdown favorite; Saban had three of those in his tenure.

Of course, it was never going to be fun to be compared with Saban. But DeBoer is making it hard not to think of Bryan Harsin, another coach from the Northwest who came to the SEC with no SEC ties. Harsin left Boise State for Auburn and didn’t make it through two seasons with the Tigers. DeBoer’s $70 million buyout basically guarantees he won’t suffer the same indignity.

But things aren’t going well. And this was inexcusable for a team with so much talent — multiple projected first-round picks, guys all over Bruce Feldman’s “Freaks List.” This is a team that had Saban, a guy who knows a thing about football and talent and this program, very confident about it before it actually played.

Alabama was weak and foolish when it mattered most. Former Bama running back Roydell Williams ran right through the middle of the Bama defense on a crucial fourth-and-1 in the fourth quarter. Two plays later, James Smith got an extra shot in on Castellanos on the ground, drawing a 15-yard personal foul. Four plays after that, Gavin Sawchuk carried most of the Bama defense with him into the end zone for the final margin.

“No excuse,” DeBoer told reporters afterward. He said he believes he has a good football team. He doesn’t want them in the “gray area” anymore, which is something he said last year. Also, he said: “Last year isn’t this year.”

But with Georgia, LSU, South Carolina and Tennessee on the schedule? It might be. That’s when a one-year dip becomes a great program on the decline. That’s when boosters start talking about how long, exactly, they’re willing to let this continue.

Week 1 is a pathological liar, and many of the things we saw and concluded Saturday might make us laugh in November. But let’s agree on this: Corso has been one of the best things about college football in the past 30 years, and we should have believed him when he picked his alma mater to win this game.

 

[TerryP]

Eight times the word "maybe" is used in this write up. Maybe, he's as confused as a lot of others; just, maybe.

A week ago, little over that actually, Josh Pate visits practice and a day later says he expects Bama to win the title. It was based on what he saw, up close, in person. Much like a whole lot of others.

Maybe a lot are forgetting it is one game?

No maybe about this. Some things are fixable within a season. Some aren't.

 

[mando]

No maybe about this. Some things are fixable within a season. Some aren't.

Yeah the most concerning thing to me that may fit in that not fixable category is on the line of scrimmage. We did have Roberts and Allan out so one key starter on each side but hard for me to believe that would have made that much difference. The difference in rushing yards was downright disgusting. Maybe all the rest is fixable and maybe this is an overreaction but I can only go with what my eyes are seeing not what talking heads are saying.

Now the most puzzling thing is you have folks that really know what that are talking about saying great things like CNS and previous players so I am holding out some hope based on that but it is getting harder to do so.

 

[TerryP]

Now the most puzzling thing is you have folks that really know what that are talking about saying great things like CNS and previous players so I am holding out some hope based on that but it is getting harder to do so.

I'm with you until the last part. Too soon. Except for ...

I hate hearing the old "challenge and opportunity" line from DuBose. I don't know if I've heard "violent hands" as much as I've seen Wommack touch the bill of his cap. I do know that I didn't see what my layman's eyes wanted to see when it comes to how those guys fought with their hands. If they have the same position coach, we saw this last season, I can't hold out hope we'll suddenly see it in a few weeks. Fundamentals.

 

[Crimson&WhiteGecko]

..... A week ago, little over that actually, Josh Pate visits practice and a day later says he expects Bama to win the title. It was based on what he saw, up close, in person. Much like a whole lot of others.

....... If they have the same position coach, we saw this last season, I can't hold out hope we'll suddenly see it in a few weeks. Fundamentals.

Yes, exactly, fundamentals..... are barely average. Blocking, tackling, no stupid penalties. All present in spades to loses against unranked opponents. This reeks of very poor preparation against lower competition.

I'm not putting any stock anymore from anyone who's only frame of reference is based on this team practicing against itself. CKD's body of work so far is mentally & physically soft teams that wilt when getting in a straight fist fight. As of right now nothing tells me that his program can fight in a phone both. His philosophy is clearly to gun it out to get a big lead & force the other team to resort to the passing game, thus falling into the trap of the 3-3-5 Swarm defense.

However, folks have figured that out & aren't having none of it. They are all going to drag our players into a phone booth & strangle them just like CNS did to them.

Until a CKD coached team can show me they can brawl without wilting or losing focus AND actually win that game, I will not have any confidence in his leadership.

 

[Bamabww]

. And there’s no maybe when it comes to the loud, ugly, earned noise around DeBoer

Eight times the word "maybe" is used in this write up. Maybe, he's as confused as a lot of others; just, maybe.

Terry, I couldn’t find anything in the article I disagreed with, especially the last ‘maybe’.

Or what you said, if that matters. But there’s a lot to ‘fix’ and that’s the biggest question. Can he and the staff fix all of it now, if they couldn’t during the offseason? Maybe.

 

[musso]

Some things are fixable within a season. Some aren't.

I have long suppressed my own feelings in deference to those more knowledgeable about the game and the happenings from inside the program. But from the VERY BEGINNING, from his acceptance speech at the podium, I doubted that his personality and temperament would work in the SEC and at Bama in particular. I kept hearing about the new positive energy he and his staff had brought into the program and how Saban had grown stale and out of touch with players. So I let it go. But in interviews both DeBoer and Wommack act insecure, overwhelmed, timid, and non-confrontational. I leave the X’s and O’s to more qualified pundits, but this isn’t NAIA or wine country. And Penix isn’t around anymore. I admit there are many factors in place that will make Saban-era dominance nearly impossible for any program, but you can just assess people sometimes and figure out they aren’t made to excel in particular environments. Now maybe this was the best Bama could do after Saban’s departure. I think that’s very likely. But the lack of intensity, physicality, and discipline is unsurprising to me based on DeBoer and Womack’s dispositions.

 

[musso]

@Crimson&WhiteGecko Masterful post. A perfect compliment to my sentiments.