If the season started today, Kalen DeBoer would be the Alabama head football coach. That’s a joke, a mash-up of DeBoer’s rote response about current starting quarterback Ty Simpson, but it’s not completely unserious.

Think about the coaches from this state that have gotten people talking through the first three days of SEC Kickoff 2025. DeBoer’s predecessor generated more buzz without showing up or saying a word. His in-state rival sparked more headlines by semi-boldly declaring that his team is playoff-discussion ready.

The big, unanswered questions: Will Alabama football legend Nick Saban be coaching again in 2026? Will Auburn golf legend Hugh Freeze still be coaching here next year?

The current boss in Tuscaloosa has questions of his own to answer this season. In introducing DeBoer in the main media room Wednesday, Greg Sankey noted that he was the first Crimson Tide coach to debut with nine wins since Frank Thomas in 1931.

While it was nice of the commissioner to focus on the positive, his nugget served as a reminder that Alabama is not just another football program. Even veteran coaches like Saban have needed time to learn on the job in Tuscaloosa.

Saban grabbed the Alabama job and everyone in his orbit by the throat, figuratively speaking, when he arrived in January of 2007. His my-way-or-the-highway personality inspired a downtrodden fan base. Still, his first season was an unsettling succession of fits and starts and catastrophic events, ending with seven victories and six defeats.

Alabama football wouldn’t experience anything quite as traumatic again until Saban retired, Greg Byrne tapped DeBoer to uphold the legacy in his own way and the Tide went 9-4. Hence the question aimed at DeBoer in Atlanta. It may have been the easiest question anyone was asked over the past three days.

Did Year One after being handed the keys to Saban’s kingdom live up to the Bama Standard?

The short answer: No.

The long answer: Hell no. Next question.

DeBoer didn’t inherit his predecessor’s salty vocabulary or thirst for confrontation so he went in a different direction. He eventually got to the right answer but only after a halting reply that began with a question in response to the question.

“In what way?”

In every forward-facing, flag-waving, Roll Damn Tide kind of way. To review the manual for newcomers like offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb:

The Bama Standard demands that you don’t lose to Vanderbilt. The 2024 Alabama team did. It was the program’s first loss to the Commodores since 1984. That shocker so emboldened Vandy quarterback Diego Pavia that, last month, he clapped back at Tide wunderkind receiver Ryan Williams.

Williams said that, when the ‘Dores come to Tuscaloosa in October, the Tide plans to “kill an ant with a sledgehammer.” Pavia responded at the time on social media with song lyrics: “They actin like they tough, but they don’t want no confrontation.”

Asked about that summer smoke at SEC Media Days, Pavia kept it polite, if not real. Fun fact: In two years at New Mexico State and one at Vanderbilt, he’s 4-0 against teams from this state with two wins over Auburn, one over Jacksonville State and Vandy 40, Alabama 35.

The Bama Standard demands that you don’t lose to any unranked opponents. The 2024 Alabama team lost to three: Vanderbilt, Oklahoma and Michigan in the ReliaQuest Bowl. In the final 16 years of Saban’s 17-year reign, the Crimson Tide suffered only a single defeat against an unranked foe. That was Texas A&M in 2021.

The Bama Standard isn’t just about avoiding negative outcomes. It’s about putting yourself in position to do great things. It demands that you play in the SEC Championship Game, the College Football Playoff or at least a New Year’s Six bowl. The 2024 team did not reach any of those milestones. In 17 years, Saban’s teams went 0 for 3 on that score only three times in 2007, 2010 and 2019.

Despite his initial failure to live up to that standard beyond defeating Georgia and Auburn, DeBoer has history on his side. Each of the previous six Alabama coaches, from Bill Curry to Saban, improved their win total by at least two from Year 1 to Year 2. The average uptick was 3.2 additional victories in their second season. The standouts were Saban at plus-5 and Gene Stallings at plus-4.

DeBoer charted an upward trajectory himself at his two previous FBS stops. His second Fresno State team improved by six wins, although his first year was abbreviated by COVID-19. His second Washington team improved by three wins and played for the national title.

The playoff discussion may be good enough for Freeze at Auburn this year. It won’t be for DeBoer at Alabama. Freeze’s failures last year and Saban’s wildly successful television debut deflected some of the glare from DeBoer, but no more. The Bama Standard bends for no man. If they have to ask you about it, you didn’t live up to it.

The current Alabama coach’s second chance awaits.