Can Kalen DeBoer keep this roster together even if Alabama does not make the 12-team College Football Playoff?
This is a thought that is floating around where the Crimson Tide is concerned.
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Alabama has its annual rivalry on Saturday as it battles Auburn University in the Iron Bowl at 2:30 p.m. CT on Saban Field at Bryant-Denny Stadium. The Tigers are hungry to become bowl-eligible on Alabama’s watch, while the Tide looks to dismantle Auburn and have some chaos happen for it to make the playoff. We have seen college football players in the past opt out of bowl games to enter the NCAA transfer portal when their teams missed out on the CFP to compete for a national championship.
Should Alabama fans be concerned about this with a 3-loss Tide team? Roman Harper, a former Tide safety, was on The Next Round show Friday via WJOX 94.5 FM in Birmingham, Ala. The 2009 Super Bowl Champion and SEC Network analyst highlighted the most important aspect for his Alma mater to focus on versus Auburn and moving forward.
He hopes that DeBoer keeps the roster together.
“I’m not worried about the mass exodus…just go win ball games and guys don’t leave.” @Harp41 pic.twitter.com/qlClSBRCVi
— The Next Round (@NextRoundLive) November 29, 2024
“I root for everybody to keep that down,” Harper said about keeping roster movement down when it comes to players entering the transfer portal. “But you never know what an 18, 19, 20, 21-year-old kid is thinking or whatever opportunities he feels he has out there. I just do not know that. I know Alabama continues to recruit at a high level, but you have to recruit your own guys.”
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Harper said talent is not an issue for Alabama, but winning the right way is.
“It is the little things,” Harper said. “It’s the holes in the defense. It’s like it is third and two and Oklahoma is in 12 personnel with two tight ends on the field and you have three down linemen. … I’m like ‘what are we doing?’ Like, are you really trying to stop them? Those little things are what makes Alabama unattractive. Everything about Alabama is attractive, but when you don’t win that is the only thing that holds you back as the University of Alabama. When schools like that can’t recruit, can’t get the players, and can’t get the guys to stay, it is because you are not winning right. Handle the little things and everything else will take care of itself.”
Harper is not worried about a mass exodus at Alabama.
“Just go out there and win ball games, and then guys don’t leave,” he said.
Winning the right way was a formula Nick Saban had over a decade as head coach of Alabama for 17 years. The discipline, attention to detail, toughness, relentless fight, competitiveness, and effort Saban instilled into his teams produced nine Southeastern Conference Championships and six national championships. The Tide has to discover its foundational principles under Coach DeBoer, and that is the biggest aspect Harper is referring to. Once it defines who it wants to be as a team, Alabama will be successful under DeBoer. Maybe that will take some players leaving via the transfer portal, but we will see.
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Stephen M. Smith is the senior writer for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can “like” him on Facebook or “follow” him on Twitter, via @CoachingMSmith.
