00:00I find the Kalen DeBoer conundrum to be one of the most fascinating things in the country.
00:06It's this weird thing where everybody is like, these are unfair expectations.
00:11Nobody could ask him to meet.
00:13And then in the same breath, they're like, fire Kalen DeBoer.
00:17He's completely failed this program.
00:19Kalen DeBoer has appeared in a national championship game.
00:24You know, more recently than Nick Saban, just so that we can all, that was Saban's last year.
00:33That was why they hired Kalen DeBoer.
00:37In his first year in Tuscaloosa, they were controversially left out of the college football playoff because we do this,
00:45you know.
00:47People said, oh, we're going to go to 12 teams.
00:49There's going to be no more controversy.
00:50See, wrong, actually, there's more controversy than ever now when we leave out Alabama and Notre Dame and all these
00:54things.
00:54So, okay, they get left out the first year.
00:57They miss out narrowly.
00:59They followed up last year by playing in the SEC championship and winning a road college football playoff game,
01:08which I believe is more college football playoff wins than Kirby Smart in this upgraded format.
01:15And then they lost.
01:16They got drilled by Indiana, who, oh, I don't know, went on to win the national championship.
01:22This all feels a little crazy to me.
01:24Like, I don't want to tell Alabama fans to settle for less.
01:27I respect that.
01:29But I do not understand why Kalen DeBoer is being seen as, like, a failure.
01:34That just feels completely detached from reality here, Dave.
01:41It's real simple.
01:43There's reality, and then there's reality in the South.
01:46And I grew up in the South, and I grew up in the SEC.
01:49It's a whole other level of craziness down there when it comes to reality and expectations.
01:54I'm 1,000% with you.
01:57Kalen DeBoer and Hot Seat do not belong in any universe of the same conversation.
02:02He's won 20 games in two years, which is more than Nick Saban won in his first two years.
02:08He's played in an SEC championship game.
02:10He's played in a national championship game.
02:12Like you said, he took Alabama to the playoff and won a road playoff game last year.
02:17He's on the hot seat.
02:18No, he's not.
02:19First of all, they just gave him a contract extension as well, which we all know means absolutely nothing in
02:23college football.
02:24But here's a guy who maybe they don't have the same type of talent they had under Nick Saban when
02:30the transfer portal didn't exist and NIL didn't exist.
02:34There's a reason Nick Saban is sitting on the game day set this morning and not in Tuscaloosa.
02:39He didn't want to have to deal with the transfer portal at NIL and having to recruit your own team
02:45every year.
02:45He went out and got the best recruiting class in the country every single year.
02:50Caleb DeBoer can't do that, and the expectations are insane that you expect DeBoer to build the same type of
02:58roster or same type of expectations that Saban has.
03:01We're talking about two different sports from when Saban was the coach and DeBoer was the coach, yet DeBoer has
03:08won more games than Saban in his first two years.
03:11So I think that the narrative is insane, but the only thing I can tell you, Kevin, is it's the
03:16SEC and it's Tuscaloosa, and they're just from a different planet than everybody else is.
03:22And that's why, like, it's there for them this year to have a good season.
03:26The schedule is not overly hard compared to what we've seen in the past, compared to what we just talked
03:31about in Texas.
03:31Now, you probably shouldn't lose the Florida State at home last year.
03:36This time you get your revenge game.
03:38You probably don't want to go lose in Lexington next week, but at the same time, they have an easy
03:44start.
03:45They have an easy end.
03:46You got the gauntlet in between that they're going to have a very tough four-game stretch against Georgia, Tennessee,
03:53A&M, and LSU.
03:54If you go 0-4, he may not be in town much longer.
03:57But you win two of those four games, you're in the college football playoff conversation, which they are every year.
04:04So, like, it's a different sport, and that's where I think the fans down there in Tuscaloosa haven't exactly caught
04:11on that this is not the same sport Nick Saban coached.
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