Another round of Alabama hot takes has landed, and this one doesn’t hold up once you look at the actual situation in Tuscaloosa.
Former Western Colorado player Blain Crane, who hosts the Crain and Cone podcast, said on a recent episode that Alabama will fire Kalen DeBoer after his third season leading the Crimson Tide. Crane also painted a familiar picture of the Alabama fanbase, saying, "Alabama fans are not happy.
They’re not happy. They’re a fanbase that I don’t know if you can ever make them happy unless you do what?
You never give up a first down. If they score more than 14 points we’re coming to your house.
You better win in Atlanta and you better go win a national championship."
That’s not exactly a shocking description of Alabama expectations. For years, plenty of Crimson Tide fans have operated with a standard that borders on impossible.
Crane’s bigger point was that if Alabama goes 8-4 in 2026, the fanbase would turn on DeBoer and the school would move on. Four losses would leave the Tide out of the SEC Championship Game and out of the Playoff, and by that point, Crane argued, Alabama fans would decide DeBoer hadn’t done enough in three seasons.
But that’s where the argument runs into reality: fans do not fire coaches.
In Tuscaloosa, the only person who can actually make that call is Greg Byrne. And just a couple of months ago, Alabama and Byrne gave DeBoer a new contract. His annual compensation is now more than Nick Saban ever made as coach.
The buyout is the real wall here. If Alabama fired DeBoer without cause, he would be owed 95% of the remaining contract value.
The source says that figure would be around $65 million. It would also have to be paid in one lump sum, and there would be no offset for whatever DeBoer earned in his next job.
That kind of number is hard enough to swallow on its own. It gets even uglier when you factor in the broader ripple effect.
Alabama does not have a billionaire booster like Texas Tech’s Cody Campbell ready to cover a massive buyout at will. And pulling together the money for DeBoer would likely drain donor support from NIL efforts, leaving the next coach with less firepower to build a roster capable of chasing championships.
Could Alabama technically find a way to pay it after an 8-4 season? Sure.
But the source makes clear that it would make no business sense. A 7-5 season would bring the issue closer to the edge, and 6-6 might push Alabama into a bad business decision.
So the idea that Alabama will fire Kalen DeBoer after an 8-4 season is, in the source’s words, utter nonsense.
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Kalen DeBoer enters the 2026 conversation with the kind of pressure that comes with coaching Alabama, where anything short of a championship chase tends to feel like a step backward. The broader college football picture may be opening up with the 12-team playoff, and there are only a handful of active coaches who have already won it all, but the Tide are still judged by a different standard, one built on titles and the expectation that the roster should look ready to contend again quickly.
The concern is whether Alabama can get the offense back to that level after a rough stretch that left too many questions about balance and consistency. Even with a defense that should again give the Tide a chance to stay in games, the path forward depends on whether the program can clean up the issues that have made the margin feel thinner than usual, and whether DeBoer can turn that scrutiny into something closer to the championship pace Alabama fans expect. [Read more 🡒]
Jermaine Bishop Is Giving Texas Fans Another Reason To Dream Big
Spring practices across the SEC have been offering early clues about which freshmen are ready to matter right away, and Alabama has its own name in that conversation. Dre'lyn Crowell arrived with the kind of reputation that usually gets attention before a player ever takes a college carry, and the buzz around him has only grown as coaches and observers look for young backs who can handle real responsibility early.
For Alabama, the timing matters because the run game needs a lift, and Crowell is being viewed as a player who could help provide it almost immediately. He missed much of spring with an injury, but the expectation is that he will be back for fall camp, which keeps the door open for a fast track into the rotation and perhaps even a bigger role before long. [Read more 🡒]