A lot has changed at Alabama since Jalen Milroe ran into a wall of Michigan defenders in the Rose Bowl, but the expectations remain the same.
Nick Saban won’t be coaching the team anymore. The new head coach is Kalen DeBoer, who led Washington to a national runner-up finish last year.
Milroe is back as quarterback, where he excelled after a slow start, but he will have a mostly new group of playmakers. The defending Southeastern Conference champion Crimson Tide will still start the season ranked No. 5 and are expected to make the newly expanded College Football Playoff once again.
What else is different? Quite a bit, but the sense of confidence around the football program remains. This is a team that won six national championships during Saban’s 17 seasons. If DeBoer’s description of his new staff in Tuscaloosa matches the players, it could be a good season.
“They’re beyond motivated,” DeBoer said. “They’re driving to be great, driven to uphold the standard of Alabama football.”
The team should be highly motivated by how last season ended. Alabama was eliminated from the playoff when Milroe was stopped well short of the end zone in overtime.
“I think about the Michigan game almost every day,” Tide safety Malachi Moore said. “Even fresh off of wake-up, 6:30, it’s the first thing on my mind coming to work every day. I think that’s one of our main driving factors. Everybody that was here has that bad taste in our mouth that we didn’t finish and we were right there.”
DeBoer also had his season end against Michigan. He led his Huskies to the national championship game, but they lost 34-13.
