By Kyle Golik
Nick Saban realized early on with Jalen Milroe that he needed tough love to develop and reach his enormous potential. Some may say Saban’s tactics may have been antiquated following Texas’ 34-24 win in Bryant-Denny Stadium last season, but Saban saw Milroe needed discipline, especially when the opponent had Milroe figured out.
“One of the things we were trying to get Jalen to do is change his style a little bit as a player and be that point guard type of guy that I talked about before,” Saban explained during 2024 SEC Media Days. “It took us taking his job away to get him to be able to buy into that. When he did, he became a much better player, much better leader. He developed the confidence of the team.”
I am not here to say Saban’s approach was perfect every time at Alabama, but in this case, Kalen DeBoer’s approach of taking Milroe from a “point guard type of guy” to a “one-man act” has failed the team this season.
Look at Alabama’s ground game. Running backs Jam Miller and Justice Hanyes only have one game in SEC conference play with 50 yards rushing, achieved when Haynes had 79 yards in the 34-0 Missouri win. Combined, the two in their limited carries have averaged 4.2 yards in conference play, the combined 117 carries for Haynes and Miller in conference play pales in comparison to Milroe’s 93 carries alone.
While it is easy to indict Milroe’s selfishness on the ground by the workload, his passing game has regressed from a season ago.
In SEC play a season ago, Milroe had 15 passing touchdowns to four interceptions. This season Milroe had five passing touchdowns to nine interceptions.
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During the crunch time of November where Alabama asserted itself as a playoff team, Milroe completed 69.4% of his passes, this season, it’s 56.7%.
The embarrassing 24-3 loss to an unranked Oklahoma team was the second Top 10 upset of the DeBoer era. The only time it happened under Saban was by Texas A&M in 2021.
The last time Alabama was held to three points or fewer in a game, you got to go back to the Mike Shula days in Tuscaloosa in 2004 when the Tide lost to South Carolina 20-3. The Tide was not ranked in the Top 10 in that encounter. In fact, they ended the season 6-6.
What did Kalen DeBoer, Jalen Milroe have to say after Alabama’s loss?
As Alabama’s offense cratered against Oklahoma, DeBoer was pressed about Milroe’s interceptions.
“I think stepping back, I just felt like early in the game, there’s different things. I mean, drops, just flat-out drops, balls we lost in the lights, just different, uncharacteristic things, weird things that happened. And I thought he was actually putting the ball where he needed to. We just needed to help him out a bit. The screen pass, they jump it. You have to assume that those blocks are going to happen and you’re reading a different defender. But then there’s the pick six that goes the other way. I don’t know if he just didn’t see him or predetermined things, but there’s still a lot of game left,” DeBoer said.
As the frustration for DeBoer continued to pour, he pivoted back to positives with Milroe and you can see a stark contrast between DeBoer and Saban, “I felt like a lot of things he was doing, he was fighting and battling and doing a lot of things well for our football team. We just all needed to be a little better. So, I thought he kept battling. I looked at his eyes, and I think he’s come a long ways all season long and just the way he wants to go out there and keep leading the team and guys kept fighting for them. That was just pretty much what I shared with them. Just, have no regrets, go out there and keep swinging.”
In a lot of ways, Saban strived for perfection and he was about as close as any coach has ever been over a period of time to achieve that. DeBoer may say all the right things, but that detail of keeping fighting and battling are cliches that did not happen. DeBoer’s style that worked with Michael Penix Jr. is not working with Milroe.
Milroe, after his latest disappointment sounded like a quarterback that played for Saban.
“It’s all about finish,” Milroe said. “We’ve got to finish. There’s so much left for the football season. We’ve got to get everyone together to have a like-mindedness and just keep on competing. Every opportunity that we have, we’ve just got to seize it.”
DeBoer and Milroe’s inability to develop any receiver, outside of freshman phenom Ryan Williams consistently in the offense is the reason Alabama will not be in the College Football Playoff this season. The Iron Bowl lays ahead for the Crimson Tide, if DeBoer and Milroe need another miracle the cries will only grow louder from Tuscaloosa because they aren’t used to seeing imperfection.
DeBoer’s ultimate failure was enabling Milroe as a one-man act, yes it is easy when you make plays to allow this. The key is when those plays aren’t there, an offense has to know who they can trust. The Oklahoma game showed Milroe couldn’t outrun an Oklahoma defense and DeBoer when he reflects on his first season at Alabama has to own this failure because he enabled it.
