This is an opinion column.

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The Tide is holding three losses before Thanksgiving for the first time since Nick Saban’s foundational season at Alabama in 2007. The transition team to new coach Kalen DeBoer doesn’t seem to appreciate the weekly grind of the SEC. What happened to quarterback Jalen Milroe during the 24-3 loss to Oklahoma? The Iron Bowl Week mailbag column spilleth over like a horn of exasperation.

GOODMAN: DeBoer is failure and a hard Freeze is here for the Iron Bowl

Curmudgeon in Birmingham writes …

Did it occur to the offensive coaches that Oklahoma coach Brent Venables is a defensive coach and may have looked at the LSU game and decided that Milroe wasn’t going to beat them? Did the offensive coaches notice they were sabotaging drives by calling runs to Milroe, or allowing him the option to keep instead of handing off?

Milroe has had some great games, but he’s been a disaster when the Tide is substantially favored against an SEC opponent. And the coaches just let it happen without making adjustments.

ANSWER: Milroe rushed for 185 yards and four touchdowns against LSU. It was one of the best performances by a quarterback this season. Against Oklahoma, he was boxed in and wasn’t up for the fight. Milroe avoided contact, tossed three interceptions and looked bewildered most of the night.

When something finally went right for Milroe — that one time in the fourth quarter — a bizarre penalty call canceled out an amazing catch in the end zone by freshman receiver Ryan Williams.

We’ll get to the penalty call. First, Milroe.

It seemed like he was playing hurt. If that’s the case, then maybe a different quarterback would have been a better option. That’s a tough call to make with the playoffs on the line, though. Saban famously benched Jalen Hurts at halftime of the 2018 national championship game, but Saban had Tua Tagovailoa on the sideline as Alabama’s backup.

Oklahoma dared Milroe to throw the ball and it worked. The Tide only had 97 yards of offense in the first half, including 15 in the second quarter. Did Alabama attempt to make a big halftime adjustment? If so, it backfired. Milroe’s interception to end Alabama’s first drive of the third quarter was one of the worst throws of his career. After that, his confidence was shot.

Milroe then threw the pick-six on his second drive of the third quarter. It was at that point, with Alabama down 24-3, that maybe DeBoer should have thought about bringing in a different passer. He stayed with Milroe and Alabama never scored.

Milroe struggled at the line of scrimmage all night. The no-huddle offense was a disaster. I remember thinking, “What is this goat rodeo?” I’ve never actually been to a goat rodeo, but Alabama’s offense against Oklahoma was a tragic comedy of barnyard proportions. Players seemed confused about play calls throughout the game. Alabama’s pre-snap fire drills were so bad that the officials even forgot the rules of football during all the chaos.

I’m not excusing that bizarre penalty that nullified the touchdown catch by Williams, but the official who threw the flag seemed to make the call based on the general idea that goat rodeos aren’t allowed in the SEC.

Robert in Stapleton, Ala., writes …

I continue to be amazed at Kalen DeBoer’s new conferences after a loss. His ability to succinctly identify the issues and clearly state what needs to be done to correct the problems is amazing. “We’ve got to play better…We’ve gotta be better in all areas.” Umm, this is what Greg Byrne brought us for millions per year? I’m truly at a loss for words.

Can we at least get him some media interaction or public speaking training so that the embarrassment the team brings on itself isn’t compounded when he speaks about it?

ANSWER: One of the things that made Saban such a great coach was his elite ability as a public speaker and communicator. DeBoer is a work in progress. He’s not as bad as former Auburn coach Bryan Harsin, so it could be worse. DeBoer reminds Alabama fans of a former Crimson Tide coach Mike Shula for a reason, however, and that’s because DeBoer speaks in generalities and never tries to say anything remotely interesting or controversial.

Saban was a machine of motivational quotes, rants, jokes, stories and one-liners. DeBoer is vanilla by design.

What sticks out to me is something that athletics director Byrne said after he hired DeBoer. Byrne noted that he studied DeBoer’s news conferences for several years before making the hire. How did Byrne stay awake?

Peanut writes …

1. [Offensive coordinator] Nick Sheridan is awful. I mean AWFUL.

2. Milroe could have made that tackle [on the pick-six] and chose not to, plain and simple.

3. The illegal touching was a very God awful call, but the official a mile back threw it and he did so before the ball was touched. Illegal touching before the illegal act occurred? If you read the rule, it can’t be called until after the possession or act of illegal touching because if it’s intercepted, there’s no foul.

Steve in Navarre, Fla., writes …

I’ve watched Alabama football for about 60 years or so, and before that huddled around a radio to listen. This is the first time I’ve said this…THE OFFICIAL THAT MADE THAT CALL should be investigated. It wasn’t a bad call. He just didn’t think on his feet well enough. He saw the touchdown, then threw a flag to stop it. Not a mistake. Not a judgement call. He didn’t want Alabama to have that touchdown.

Why he did this is where the investigation should start. By the way, Joe, I’m sick of hearing bad call, questionable call, etc. IT WAS CALLED with prejudice. Blatant dishonesty, whatever, but not “questionable call.” That phrase makes me want to throw up in this situation.

On a side note, the irony here is that when we were on probation and Dennis Franchione was our coach and we went to Oklahoma they called our wide receivers for holding on two touchdowns and called them back. Last night, every run the OU quarterback made around the end on their touchdown drive, Oklahoma was holding the cornerback with both hands as the quarterback ran by. Took one of them all the way to the ground! I guess I’m the only bama fan not blind.

ANSWER: There will be no wishy-washy language here. The call should be a fireable offense. There needs to be more oversight with officials in the SEC. SEC officiating continues to embarrass itself every week. Auburn coach Hugh Freeze said he wanted to fight an official after a pass interference call against tight end Rivaldo Fairweather in overtime of the victory against Texas A&M. The Big Ten is a better officiated conference in both football and basketball. Maybe the SEC should visit the Big Ten this offseason and study how they do things in the Midwest.

Big Worm from Winston County writes …

For someone who has followed sports his entire life, and read more articles than I could care to count, I have never felt the need to ever respond to one because generally it felt like a waste of my time to get involved in a discussion with someone who was far inferior in their knowledge of sports. But I quite enjoyed reading your article concerning the Alabama-Oklahoma game — most especially the perfect choice of words concerning my home county of Winston.

I’m not sure how you know it so well, but you couldn’t have put it more perfectly. Those roads were crap when I was a kid and they are still crap today, but that is part of what I love about visiting home and the good and bad of those roads was a perfect representation of the Crimson Tide season. The highs were really high and the lows really low.

When Saban retired, the first person that came to my mind to replace him was Kalen DeBoer (long before he was mentioned), but to this point he has felt ill-prepared for playing in the SEC. I still remember the first time I realized the case. It was when Malachi Moore acted like a petulant child towards the end of the Vanderbilt game and he basically got a slap on the wrist. That was one of the things I respected most about Coach Saban. He didn’t care if you were a starter or fifth stringer, you play by his rules or you don’t play.

I have noticed quite often in interviews that DeBoer seems insecure and lost almost as to how to handle the situation. I understand there’s a brighter spotlight on him than he’s ever seen in his entire career at this point. I’m sure it’s overwhelming at times but that’s a part of the game.

I think one of the most frustrating parts of this season for me is that it’s not like in most cases when a legendary coach retires, and has fallen on hard times, and the next person in line is basically being handed a Pinto. Coach Saban left out on top, more or less, leaving DeBoer a Porsche … and he has almost turned it back into a Pinto.

As a lifelong die-hard fan, I can forgive a lot of things, but two of those are not losing to Vanderbilt and losing to a far-inferior Oklahoma team based on how they have played up to this point and then getting skull dragged.

ANSWER: I started my career as a professional journalist covering high school football in Walker and Winston counties. I’m quite fond of the Free State of Winston, and still get up to Bankhead National Forest from time to time.

House district representative Tim Wadsworth also reached out about my comparison of Alabama’s offense to the roads of Winston County. Let’s just say that Wadsworth didn’t appreciate my love of Winston County ruts quite as much as Big Worm.

Saban’s Porsche would have no problems navigating the fine byways of Double Springs, but we should probably fire up the Pinto for the trip out to the goat rodeo.

BE HEARD

Got a question for Joe? Want to get something off your chest? Send Joe an email about what’s on your mind. Let your voice be heard. Ask him anything.

Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of the book “We Want Bama: A Season of Hope and the Making of Nick Saban’s Ultimate Team.”