Nick Saban has been enjoying retirement for over a year and a half now as he enters his second season off of a sideline. That being the case, though, Chris Fallica thinks Alabama is still getting a bump for some from their former head coach. ‘The Bear’ made an appearance on ‘See Ball Get Ball’ […]
Nick Saban has been enjoying retirement for over a year and a half now as he enters his second season off of a sideline. That being the case, though, Chris Fallica thinks Alabama is still getting a bump for some from their former head coach.
‘The Bear’ made an appearance on ‘See Ball Get Ball’ with David Pollack on Monday. It was there that, in breaking down the top of the SEC, Fallica questioned if Alabama is actually in the conference’s top tier alongside Georgia and Texas or if the Crimson Tide are still being perceived that way because of how people used to think of them during Saban’s tenure.
“Do you really put Alabama in that tier?” thought Fallica. “I know a lot of people are really high on them, but it almost feels like we’re still living in this era of, ‘Yeah, but it’s Alabama! They’ll be back!’. ‘Yeah, but it’s Alabama’ – but there’s a big but there, and that but is sitting on the College GameDay set now.”
This could be fair to think considering how synonymous that Saban and Alabama’s success were from 2007 to 2023. The Crimson Tide obviously had success in other eras in the past but, in the modern day, Saban led ‘Bama to a record of 206-29 (.877), the best winning percentage in program history, with nine wins in the SEC Championship and six national titles with three apiece across the BCS and the CFP.
Following his retirement in January of 2024, Kalen DeBoer took Saban’s place as head coach of the Tide, going 9-4 overall in his debut last fall. Still, while that record already isn’t acceptable to those in Tuscaloosa, especially as they didn’t make the SEC Championship or the College Football Playoff, Fallica also just didn’t think they actually played all that well on the field either, especially offensively.
“They couldn’t run the ball worth a lick last year,” said Fallica. “If you look at Ryan Williams’ performance in numbers after the Georgia game last year? Now, maybe it was a Jalen Milroe problem, but his numbers were – like, I don’t think he had a game, I think he had one game with, like, more than like 70 receiving yards the rest of the season after the Georgia game – and maybe that’s a Milroe thing and maybe Ty Simpson will be the guy.”
“I just think we’re kind of, like, automatically assuming, okay, it’s ‘Bama, they’ve got talent,” Fallica continued. “Kalen DeBoer has Ryan Grubb in there, kind of to fix the offense a little bit. They couldn’t run it last year, and now who’s going to replace (Jam) Miller who was their starting running back and he wasn’t great?”
With that, Fallica thinks that Alabama will again miss the CFP. That’s when comparing them to the top five or six teams in the SEC and the Big Ten coming into kickoff to this season
“I think it would be (Alabama), yes, (to miss the College Football Playoff),” said Fallica. “The answer would be Alabama.”
This could be more about the separation that Fallica sees between the Bulldogs and Longhorns and everyone else in the Southeastern Conference, as he still had the Tide in third. That said, Fallica does wonder if the perception of ‘Bama is still skewed of despite being nearly two years removed from the Saban era.
“So, I don’t know,” said Fallica. “I’m not ready to put ‘Bama in that class with Georgia and Texas. They’re three, but I think there’s definitely a drop-off from the top-two.”
Category: General Sports
