A look back at Alabama's 2007 embarrassing loss, and a look ahead
A look back at Alabama's 2007 embarrassing loss, and a look ahead
Quickly revisiting Nick Saban's post-game press conference
We live in a completely different era of college football today than when Nick Saban coached his first year at Alabama in 2007.
Back then, players stayed with a program three or four years. If players were paid, it was under the table with $100 handshakes and “laundry money”. It was easier to discipline players and hold them accountable without fear of losing them to the transfer portal.
It isn’t fair to make comparisons between Saban and current coach Kalen DeBoer for many reasons. DeBoer has a lot to navigate in 2024.
You may be interested, however, in how Nick Saban handled his worst loss at Alabama, a 21-14 home defeat against Louisiana-Monroe November 17, 2007.
You can watch his post-game press conference here. Below are a few snippets:
“We have a great institution here with great tradition, lots of pride, a lot of people that have pride in what we do and I’m certainly not pleased with the way we represented that tradition today.”
“We did all the things in this football game that get you beat, no matter who you play.”
“We did a lot of things today that is not winning football, and we’re all responsible for it. It all starts with me. I don’t think we had a very good week of preparation. I don’t think I did everything I could do to try to fix that, to get the players to respond and have the focus and preparation that you need to have to go out and play with the kind of consistency that you need to play with to play winning football against anyone.”
“I hit the gamut of everything I could talk about relative to respecting your opponent and getting ready to go out and dominate the people that you play. I failed in that, obviously because we went out there today and … didn’t overcome ourselves as far as what we gave away in the game.”
“I apologize to the people who support this program, that we didn’t represent it with the class that it deserves to be represented with and we will get it fixed.”
Below are snippets of Kalen DeBoer’s post-game press conference after Saturday’s loss to Vanderbilt:
“Obviously, extremely disappointed, frustrated, you name it. That’s what everyone is in the locker room right now. You prepare, and it’s positive energy all week long and I thought our guys prepared. There are some things we are going to look back on tomorrow and be really frustrated about.”
“There is only one option to get focused and get back to work. I feel like we’ve got a really great football team. We weren’t at our best today and we’ll find out how much we care about each other and what is looks like moving forward … This is a different type of test right now and our response.”
On Malachi Moore:
“He was much better when we got in the locker room. The guy pours everything into what he does. It doesn’t make it OK. We want to be first class in everything we do. You know, there’s a lor of guys that are really frustrated. The key is we move that frustration into positives moving forward, and make sure we remember what we feel, here, tonight and remember that tomorrow when we show up, and Tuesday and Wednesday, all season long. Malachi, I’m 100 percent confident he will do that. The frustration out there comes from the work he puts in, the belief he puts in. There’s not a guy that … you know … there’s a couple of guys that were critical for us and from Day 1 when I got here they put their foot down and believed in this place and he is certainly one of them and we are going to continue to believe in him …”
A few thoughts:
- I really like Kalen DeBoer. I hope he succeeds. He may hoist a national championship trophy at the end of the season. This is a loss that called for an apology after the game. Not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but it did.
- I appreciate Malachi Moore’s loyalty to Alabama after Saban retired. I appreciate his passion. I am also encouraged by what appears to be a sincere apology posted on social media Monday morning. Having said all of that, I would suspend him for all or at least part of the next game.
- As DeBoer said Monday, falling behind two scores early forced Alabama to be near perfect on offense. Based on the defense’s past six quarters of play, Alabama may need to be near perfect on offense all season. Vandy dictated the game to Alabama’s defense.
- We don’t know if Saturday is an anomaly, or a snapshot of where college football is in 2024, or a harbinger indicating the team has lost its edge.
- If the Ole Miss defense can hammer South Carolina (hello Pete Golding), the Alabama defense can as well. It would be a good start to the season-long climb out of the hole it dug Saturday.