Kalen DeBoer Admits Alabama Didn't Handle Success Well After Last Year's Georgia Win

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— Alabama is in a somewhat familiar position from a year ago. It's not exactly the same since the Crimson Tide suffered an early-season defeat at Florida State, but Alabama is once again coming off a top-five victory over Georgia with Vanderbilt coming up next.

Because of some of the success the Commodores had last season, which initiated with the win over Alabama, and the 5-0 start to this season, Vanderbilt won't be quite as easy to overlook. Heading into last season's matchup in Nashville, Alabama was No. 1 in the country and had not lost to the Commodores in 40 years.

Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer was asked during his Monday press conference if last year's win over Georgia led to his team being overconfident and overlooking the Commodores.

"I’m not going to argue against that," DeBoer said. "You’ve got to handle success, and you’ve got to come back every single week in this league. Every coach I talk to at midfield, that’s what the conversation’s about is here you go again. You’ve got to reload mentally, physically, emotionally to during the week get prepared at the highest level you possibly can and go play ball. Physically, it’s going to be a battle and mentally, you’ve got to be ready to respond and so yeah, we didn’t handle success last year well. You can’t argue that.

"I also think they did a nice job executing in critical times and made plays. No different this week, right? And our success that we had on Saturday, none of it matters. None of it carries over. The third down stops, the third down execution on offense doesn’t matter. Points don’t carry over, every game is it’s own game. There’s new matchups that are going to be presented in this game that are different than last week. So just like I talk about every play being its own play, this game is its own game.”

The 2024 team was in full control of its own destiny for an SEC championship berth and College Football Playoff spot even after losing to Vanderbilt but suffered another letdown loss at Oklahoma in Game 11 after picking up a road win at LSU in Game 9. Alabama finished the regular season 9-3 and one spot short of the playoffs.

Because Alabama lost to Florida State in the 2025 opener, it has already had a wakeup call of sorts. The win over the Bulldogs adds a boost to the CFP resume, but there's still a long season to go with a small margin for error to suffer more losses.

There is also the revenge factor at play against the Commodores along with ESPN's College GameDay coming to Tuscaloosa. This game will be heavily publicized, and the Alabama fanbase will be eager to get back inside Bryant-Denny Stadium after a three-week gap between home games. For those reasons and more, the Tide should be fired up to play this game and get out to a 2-0 start in SEC play. But how does DeBoer make sure his team avoids an emotional letdown for the second straight season?

"I think for us, you've got to learn from what you've been through, right? DeBoer said. "And so, the handling of success last year and then what had happened for the different reasons it happened, and then where we're at now and the opportunity that we have in front of us, and what we've gone through, you take your past experiences and you have to just keep learning. And you've got to keep understanding how we got now back, got our feet somewhat underneath of us and have a little bit of momentum. And it's just really, again, being intentional. I refer to that in different ways here. Moving with purpose. That's a common theme right now.

"Just the energy and the edge that our guys have played with the last three games, we cannot lose sight of how important that's been. And we know every team that comes into our place, every team we play is getting amped up and excited to play Alabama. And we've got to take on that challenge, not just on Saturdays, but Sunday through Friday, and be ready to go.”

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