Alabama’s season was over before September began.
In 128 games leading the Crimson Tide against unranked teams, Nick Saban lost four times. In Kalen DeBoer’s 10th game against an unranked opponent at Alabama, he lost for the fourth time, as the program’s 23-year streak of season-opening wins ended with a humiliating 31-17 loss to Florida State.
The second-year Alabama coach — who accepted the impossible task of following the most successful coach in the sport’s history — was 6-5 against power conference teams, having lost three of his past four games despite being a double-digit favorite in each contest.
So when Susie Conerly, of Guntersville, Ala., was approached outside a gas station by WHNT News 19, she immediately knew what she would do if she won the $1.8 billion Powerball jackpot.
“I’d tell you exactly what I’d do with the first $70 million: I’d pay off Kalen DeBoer and get him the heck out of the University of Alabama,” said Conerly, who added she’d also buy out athletic director Greg Byrne. “They’re ruining our football program.”
A little more than one month later, James Franklin — who was leading the No. 2 team in the nation (Penn State) after last season’s playoff semifinal run — is unemployed after receiving the second-largest buyout ($49 million) in college football history, and DeBoer is leading a team with the second-best odds to win the national championship.
With five straight wins, and a Heisman co-favorite in new quarterback Ty Simpson, the heat is off DeBoer and the crisis in Tuscaloosa is over — for now.
