Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer is widely seen as one of the hottest coaches in college football, with one of the hottest seats ahead of the 2026 season. DeBoer’s future at Alabama has sparked debate among fans following the Crimson Tide’s blowout losses to the Georgia Bulldogs and the Indiana Hoosiers in the SEC Championship Game and the Rose Bowl, respectively.
Last week, FanDuel released its college football win totals, and the Crimson Tide were predicted to win 8.5 games next season.
CBS Sports Analyst Issues Win Total Warning to Kalen DeBoer
During Wednesday’s segment of the “Cover 3 Podcast,” CBS Sports analyst Tom Fornelli leveled a warning to DeBoer about his win total dipping under the predicted 8.5 next season.
“It’s harder to win a lot of games like it used to. As far as Alabama is concerned, it’s not Nick Saban’s Alabama anymore. They aren’t just going to dominate everybody,” Fornelli said. “You look at their schedule, and you see why 8.5 is a realistic win total for them. You’ve got them in the coaches under pressure category.
“If they go under and finish 8-4, I do feel like that is a lot of pressure on Kalen DeBoer. I don’t think you’d find many Alabama fans who’d be okay losing to Georgia, LSU, A&M, Auburn and whoever you end up losing to. I feel like I wanna win a lot of games this year if I’m Kalen DeBoer because they might not give me year four.”
The Crimson Tide are tied with the LSU Tigers and Texas A&M Aggies in the 8.5-win category. The SEC is led by the Georgia Bulldogs and Texas Longhorns with 9.5 predicted wins.
Josh Pate Dismisses Alabama Hot Seat Speculation
During Tuesday’s segment of the “Late Kick with Josh Pate,” analyst Josh Pate dismissed speculation about the Crimson Tide being a program on the decline and DeBoer being on the hot seat.
“They’re not a long way off. It’s not like that. They made the conference title game and made the playoff last year,” Pate said. “So there’s not a freak out. There’s no hot seat talk either. It’s kind of reminiscent of like if you watched a fire truck with its alarms and its lights on, and it’s rode around town all day searching for a fire.
“That’s kind of like the hot seat questions with DeBoer. There is no fire. There is no actual hot seat talk. But there is this group of folks out there who want hot-seat talk, and so they try and manufacture it. There’s a bunch of, ‘Man, we got to do better.'”
In two seasons at the helm of the Crimson Tide since succeeding Nick Saban in January 2024, DeBoer has managed a 20-8 record, including an SEC Championship Game appearance and a College Football Playoff berth.
