How Long Will it Take Kalen DeBoer to Get Alabama Back to a CFP Title Game? Just a Minute

DeBoer took Washington to the championship game in his second season as head coach. Is it realistic to expect the same thing at Alabama?

Sep 28, 2024; Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA; Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Kalen DeBoer watches warm ups on the field before a game against the Georgia Bulldogs at Bryant-Denny Stadium. | William McLelland-Imagn Images

Welcome to BamaCentral’s "Just a Minute," a video series featuring BamaCentral's Alabama beat writers. Multiple times a week, the writers will group up or film solo to provide their take on a topic concerning the Crimson Tide or the landscape of college sports.

Watch the above video as BamaCentral's Katie WIndham discusses how long it will take Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer to get the Crimson Tide to a College Football Playoff title game.

The 2024 college football season officially wrapped up on Monday with Ohio State defeating Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff championship game, 34-23. Alabama missed the playoff field in the first expanded 12-team version under first year head coach Kalen DeBoer.

In his last coaching stop at Washington, DeBoer had the Huskies in the CFP title game in his second season. Is it realistic to expect the same thing at Alabama?

The Crimson Tide made the CFP eight of the 10 times in the four-team format with six title game appearances and three national titles. (Alabama's last championship was in 2020 and championship-game appearance was in the 2021 season.) Since his opening press conference as head coach in Tuscaloosa, DeBoer has heralded Alabama as the standard of college football.

With the CFP now at 12 teams (and potentially 14 in the future) it will be the expectation and standard that Alabama is in the field every year. Even with an evolving landscape of college sports with NIL and the transfer portal greatly affect roster management and retention, it will still be challenging for DeBoer to keep his job at Alabama if he doesn't get the Crimson Tide to the title game and winning a national championship within the next three or four years.

DeBoer's past success shows that he has been a winner at every level. Alabama may be behind other powerhouse programs when it comes to NIL, but DeBoer will always have the talent at resources at Alabama to compete for a national championship and can get the program back there in the near future.

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