Nothing has been made more apparent this college football season than how different the stakes are at certain schools.
Alabama is undoubtedly one of those schools. A blue blood currently in its post-dynasty era, where the results don’t always match the expectations that have been in place for a very long time.
That’s bad news for head coach Kalen DeBoer. The second-year head coach is being held to a standard that few others in the nation are held to. For better or worse, fair or not, that’s just part of what he accepted when he took the job.
DeBoer didn’t make many friends in Tuscaloosa when his Crimson Tide fell short of the College Football Playoff last year. The committee did him a solid and gave them a spot this year despite losing three games.
The Tide take on the Oklahoma Sooners in the first round of the 2025 CFP, and expectations are high among Alabama faithful that they make a run. Former Alabama running back Damien Harris, who has been known to share an opinion or two, even went as far as to say that DeBoer is coaching for his job in this game.
“I think [Kalen DeBoer’s] job is on the line with this game. This isn’t the standard of excellence that is used to being had in Tuscaloosa.”@DHx34 pic.twitter.com/xplVx08lvl
— CBS Sports College Football 🏈 (@CBSSportsCFB) December 13, 2025
“In my opinion, I think his job is on the line in this game,” Harris told CBS Sports HQ on Friday. “We’ve seen how hard it is to beat a team twice in college football, and if we look at this Alabama team, and we say ‘You showed no improvement from the first time you played Oklahoma to the second time, and you weren’t able to make adjustments to flip the script of that game,’ that’s going to be a problem.”
That’s a bold stance, and we’re not sure it’s entirely true. However, it’s not as though college football hasn’t shocked us plenty of times this season. Penn State fired James Franklin just weeks after his Nittany Lions were No. 1 in the country following one too many losses. Lane Kiffin left Ole Miss in the middle of a potential national championship run for LSU. And Michigan cut Sherrone Moore loose in a hurry over his off-the-field situation.
Things move quickly in this sport. Some might say too quickly. And if Alabama does lose, and the right booster comes out firing on all cylinders, who knows how things will shake out for DeBoer?