On Tuesday, Alabama football went out with a whimper in the first season without Nick Saban manning the sidelines. Kalen DeBoer and the new-look Crimson Tide suffered a disappointing 19-13 defeat at the hands of Michigan in the ReliaQuest Bowl.

This is Alabama's fourth loss of the season, as DeBoer finishes his first season in Tuscaloosa with a 9-4 record. That may seem like a solid mark on paper, but 9-4 doesn't cut it at Alabama and the history of the program backs that up. This is the first season that Alabama has lost four games, and its first where it failed to reach 10 wins, since Saban's first season at the helm in 2007, according to Brett McMurphy of Action Network.

That season, Alabama finished 7-6 and won the Independence Bowl against Colorado to end its season.

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Now, you could take this as a good thing for DeBoer. Saban obviously rebounded well from his struggles in his first year and turned Alabama into the most feared and dominant program in college football during his tenure. But the vibes around this Alabama team don't project the same message right now, so the former Washington head coach has some work to do before next season.

The most frustrating part of this Alabama team was the volatility of the group. This Crimson Tide team showed that they can play with anybody, proving that status with a win over Georgia and a blowout of LSU in Baton Rouge. However, this team also had very low lows in losses to Vanderbilt, Oklahoma and now a Michigan team that was missing a lot of key players.

Even during the course of this game against Michigan, Alabama's inconsistency was on full display. DeBoer's group gave the ball away three times deep in its own territory in the first quarter, essentially spotting 16 points to a completely inept Michigan offense that has no semblance of a passing game. Despite the Wolverines not being able to move the ball on Alabama basically at all for the entire day, those 16 points plus a late field goal were enough to help them get a win.