This is an opinion column.

The legacy of any given team is tricky in the short term because half of the context is missing.

We know quite a bit about the circumstances that greeted the 2024 Alabama football team to the field of competition. What follows will better frame the year following a peaceful yet sometimes rocky transition of power.

But in the absence of a crystal ball, we can paint the early picture of Kalen DeBoer’s first season in Tuscaloosa with the data on hand.

Success or regress?

Pass or fail?

The definitive binary conclusions can wait because this year was bathed in nuance.

Steps forward, then backward.

Flashes of great success were quickly overshadowed by moments of utter failure. A great what-if for what could’ve been a model for a season of monumental change. At times, it felt like DeBoer was on the cusp of defying preseason skeptics unsure if he could keep the torch lit from the legend he replaced.

So close to getting a definitive success stamped on Year 1.

Instead, a visit to the murky middle ground where the 2024 Alabama football legacy sits this early January. Four teams are still fighting for the first 12-team playoff national title that Alabama ultimately missed — narrowly but definitively.

That in itself is a vote for the failure side of the ledger.

But again, nuance.

That comes with the first 18 minutes of Alabama’s showdown with No. 2 Georgia. A huge television audience witnessed a 28-0 first-half bludgeoning followed by the christening of Ryan Williams.

It was the tease that created this false hope this Saban-to-DeBoer swap might not have been so detrimental to the rhythm of a powerhouse. That 41-34 beating of Kirby Smart’s replica of Saban’s Alabama program was one of two tentpoles — apex moments that proved fleeting in the end.

The other was a 42-13 emasculation of LSU in Tiger Stadium when Alabama entered as a 3-point favorite. Against Georgia, the Tide was a rare home underdog.

Don’t forget this was a team that won the two games where the odds were either against them or as tight as they’d get all season.

• Georgia (2-point underdog), 41-34 winner
• LSU (3-point favorite), 42-13 winner

Those glories, however, won’t live in the memory reel of those looking back on the autumn that was in Tuscaloosa.

They’ll recall the Vanderbilt goalposts ride down Broadway.

A quick cut to a field stormin’ in Norman.

And a cold December rain washing any playoff argument down the Tampa drain in the Whoopee Cushion Bowl.

Only the 24-17 loss at playoff participant Tennessee would seem understandable (mathematically if not spiritually).

The other three remain baffling to this day.

• Vanderbilt (23-point favorite), 40-35 loser.
• Oklahoma (13.5-point favorite), 24-3 loser.
• Michigan (16.5-point favorite), 19-13 loser.

It’s easy to forget this was an Alabama team needing only to navigate two league games against teams with matching 1-5 SEC records to coast into the playoff.

Yet it was a complete no-show in the loss at Oklahoma.

As shocking as the 40-35 loss to Vanderbilt seemed in the moment (and now, honestly), it was still a game with an offensive pulse. The 24-3 loss at Oklahoma was Alabama’s first game without a touchdown in 13 seasons.

As dominant as Jalen Milroe was two weeks earlier at LSU, he was equally destructive to the season’s memory that night in Oklahoma. Three interceptions, including one returned for a touchdown became a touchstone for the inexplicable nature of this team.

The same QB ran for 185 yards and four touchdowns just 14 days earlier at LSU. Suddenly, he was incapable of completing a forward pass while being held to seven yards on 15 rushing attempts.

Those highs against Georgia and LSU showed the capabilities of a fully functioning version of this team. Conversely, those peaks made the subsequent falls all the more brutal.

The ReliaQuest Bowl was a shot to save some pride and shove this program into Year 2 with a tailwind like the 2010 Capital One Bowl, the 2019 Citrus Bowl did. Instead, the 19-13 loss was added to the indictment of a team that flirted with greatness but left itself at the altar.

Nine wins.

Four losses.

A great year in some places and a cry for help here.

The rational give a discount, in a sense, for it being the first year of a radically new era.

Two to three losses wouldn’t have shocked the informed viewer in advance of this season but it was the site of those defeats, the expectations entering those games and, with the last two, the complete offensive ineptitude that’ll live on through the years.

Salvation from this hiccup would mean getting a golden ticket to the playoff it missed this time. That would mean fighting off the offseason momentum from Auburn after winning its fifth straight game over the Tigers for the first time since the early 1980s.

Either do that or this hiccup will look less like a momentary stumble and more like a new normal that’ll make any current unrest feel tolerable.

Because if 9-4 is a high point in a DeBoer era, it will be a short one.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.