With the college football season just months away, former Alabama quarterback and 2009 national champion Greg McElroy made a bold prediction about the Alabama Crimson Tide and their new coach.
McElroy believes Kalen DeBoer will be the most successful first-year head coach in Alabama Crimson Tide football history, matching or surpassing the nine-win mark set by Frank Thomas in 1931, which set 9- 1.
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“I'd be very surprised if Alabama didn't win at least nine games,” McElroy noted. “His schedule is set up really well. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's manageable,” McElroy said on his podcast, Always College Football with Greg McElroy.
The Tide's schedule, the ninth-toughest in the SEC, is not without its challenges, and it does so lightly. A typical schedule in the SEC is a brutal gauntlet, but the 2024 season brings a new level of difficulty as Texas and Oklahoma join the conference. Alabama has the latter on the schedule in Norman, Okla., with other challenging road games at No. 13 Tennessee, No. 11 Missouri, No. 10 LSU and a road game at Wisconsin.
In terms of first-season success, program legends Saban and Stallings went 7-6 in their first seasons, while Bryant went 5-4-1. DeBoer, however, appears to have a stronger staff than his predecessors, with the return of dual-threat quarterback Jalen Milroe and a preseason ranking of No. 6. Additionally, DeBoer stabilized the team after major transfers following retirement by Nick Saban.
Still, getting nine more wins with this schedule will be no small feat. With the expanded College Football Playoff format, there will be a little more margin for error than in the past, but not much. The Crimson Tide will likely need more than 10 wins to earn a tournament berth and compete for a national championship.
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