Subscribe
Follow Us
Year one for Kalen DeBoer as the head coach of the Alabama football team didn't go as planned. The Crimson Tide ended up narrowly missing the expanded College Football Playoff after finishing the regular season with a 9-3 record. Alabama ended up playing unranked, 7-5 Michigan in the ReliaQuest Bowl, and they lost as massive favorites. A year like that is not acceptable at Alabama, and DeBoer is making some strict changes ahead of the 2025 season.
Nick Saban built a dynasty at Alabama in the 2010s, but they haven't won a national title since 2020. The Crimson Tide are trying to get back to the dominant days that they are used to.
“The message right now from me and my teammates, just our entire staff, is we got a different outlook on everything,” Alabama offensive lineman Roq Montgomery said, according to an article from On3. “It’s like more dialed in, more serious. It’s not like we ain’t never been serious about anything, because there’s things that we do, but we just got to get back to the old days — to when Bama does nothing but win, and win championships. That’s the main focus right now.”
In order to get to the big things like winning championships, Alabama has to start mastering the little details. There is a big emphasis on that right now.
“We ain’t playing no games with nobody,” Montgomery added. “Anybody on staff, anybody that’s a player, like no nothing. Don’t be late to nothing. Do your work on time. Do all the little stuff great… Do the little stuff right and we’ll be rewarded in the end. So, we’ve just got to do the little things the right way and then we’ll be just fine.”
Kalen DeBoer is making some strict changes within the program to make sure that the team is as disciplined as can be, and Montgomery highlighted some of those changes.
“This is our second week of workouts. We started as a team last week. You can’t be late to workouts no more. No more jewelry. No more necklaces. None of that. It’s not a fashion show. It’s football,” he said. “Shoutout to Coach Ballou, our head strength coach. He’s not playing that shit. Excuse my language, but he’s just not. If somebody late — like we had a few people late, I’m not gonna throw nobody under the bus — if somebody late to workouts, everybody got 15 up-downs on Ballou’s whistle. And then whoever late got to push a plate and do their workout, and 15 up-downs. Like, no jewelry, no nothing. Any team that has won before us, nobody was doing none of that.”
Some people might be wondering why the Alabama football team is just now implementing these changes. Montgomery addressed that as well.
“So why start doing it now? It’s a lot of stuff that happened last year, but we ain’t won a championship since 2020, so it’s like what the hell we doing? That’s not ‘Bama football,” he said.
There is a long offseason ahead of the Crimson Tide before they get to take the field in the late summer, and Montgomery is confident that all of this work will pay off.
“I feel like everybody going in the right direction right now,” Montgomery said. “But I feel come August we’re gonna be a scary sight to see.”
There will definitely be a lot of pressure on Kalen DeBoer next season as he did not meet expectations in year one. Alabama football fans excpect excellence, and another season like last is not going to cut it.
