Nick Saban is no longer Alabama’s head coach. but if the Crimson Tide pull off a College Football Playoff victory under Kalen DeBoer in 2024/25, Greg McElroy is comfortable crediting the ESPN analyst for it.
“Yes they can (win a title in 2024), Greenie, and while Coach Saban, he’s amazing, and I think he’s the greatest program builder in the history of the sport,” McElroy said on the August 29 edition of ESPN’s Get Up. “But all signs because of the way he’s built this program having pointed to them still being successful with him not on the sideline.”
McElroy believes it’d be discrediting Saban’s contributions for the last 17 years in Tuscaloosa to claim that the Crimson Tide can’t win anymore.
“I think there’s like this hesitancy to give Alabama credit, like they can’t possibly win without Nick Saban, right?” McElroy prefaced before saying, “There’s no way, because that would be discrediting the good work that Nick Saban did for the last 17 years. But man, they are ready built to succeed under Kalen DeBoer, who’s a phenomenal head coach and the great hire by Greg Byrne.”
Greg McElroy set Alabama up with narrative trap in 2024
McElroy clearly has loyalty to his former head coach, one who oversaw McElroy being QB1 for a title run in 2009/2010, but he may not have realized he inserted some rat poison into the discourse surrounding Alabama’s contention this coming season.
DeBoer and his revamped coaching staff could lead the Crimson Tide to double-digit wins, a conference championship, and postseason success, but it’ll be the reputation and financial backing Saban built and earned for Alabama that SEC fans will point at to explain it.
Who knew it’d be one of the Tide’s own who would set up a narrative trap like that?
