Kalen DeBoer owns Kirby Smart just like Saban did, puts Alabama right back in the playoff mix

ATHENS, Ga. -- The pure joy and excitement that exploded from the Alabama sideline after the 24-21 upset win over Georgia felt cathartic.

After getting beat up in the media and by its fanbase after a shocking season-opening loss to Florida State, you could tell Alabama wanted this one inside Sanford Stadium.

Badly.

Alabama players hugged and high-fived; they let out almost guttural yells of elation. Big defensive tackle Tim Keenan, in his season debut after a preseason injury, hopped and skipped over to the Alabama fans in attendance to celebrate the biggest win of the early SEC schedule.

The Alabama fans in attendance loved every minute of it. With the game in crunch time, a rowdy group of Tide fans orchestrated a loud "Let's Go Bama" chant that had the players going wild. Those Bama fans couldn't have been more excited to wave goodbye to dejected Bulldogs fans experiencing their first home loss since 2019 when Jam Miller's first down catch clinched the victory. There was an appreciation of how hard their Crimson Tide had played and how far they had already come in just a few weeks from that disappointing result down in Tallahassee.

You rarely saw such big celebrations for regular season wins in the Nick Saban era in Tuscaloosa but this is what it's like with Kalen DeBoer now running the show. There are surprising losses, but then there are potentially defining wins like Saturday night's 24-21 over No. 5 Georgia that make you a believer all over again.

After finishing up his on-field postgame TV responsibilities and with the bright lights finally off, Kalen DeBoer let himself relax for a second and let out a huge smile. There's a stoicism to DeBoer, a calmness in the face of the huge storm aimed his way whenever the Tide loses, but he knew how big this one was to reframing the narrative around his program. His boss, AD Greg Byrne, gave him a big hug as he walked toward the locker room.

"You're going to get punches thrown at you…and we got some tonight," DeBoer said. "What's your response going to be? And our response was to punch back, and punch back harder. And I really felt like even when it isn't perfect execution, I just felt like there was an attitude and energy that our guys had. You know there's going to be no regrets when we walk off the football field because we gave everything we had."

One thing that hasn't changed? The Alabama head coach, whoever it is, owns Georgia's Kirby Smart.

For as brilliant as Smart is, the best active head coach in the game, he cannot solve his Alabama problem. There's something about playing the crimson and white that seems to short circuit Smart's brain to make him want to be more aggressive. He is now 1-7 all-time against Alabama, a stunning statistic given his dominance over the rest of the sport.

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Saturday's decision to go for it on 4th-and-1 from Alabama's 8-yard down only three points perhaps wasn't as egregious as his fake punt in the 2018 SEC championship against Alabama, but it was quite bad. Not only because Georgia inevitably lost by three points, but because the play-call seemed doomed from the start.

Running Cash Jones to the right when you've had so much success with Chauncey Bowens and have a 240-pound short-distance back in Josh McCray boggles the mind. It was the wrong play call at the wrong time and proved costly for Smart, who said after the game he'd still go for it 10 out of 10 times. After getting bailed out with an Alabama defensive holding call on an earlier aggressive fourth down call, Smart should have quit when he was ahead.

"So the decision is, do you stop, slow down, think about it, let them set the cleats in the ground, let them do everything they want, or do you try to hit them quickly," Smart said. "And we have a philosophy. We believe in it."

He didn't seem to love the postgame question about being 1-7 against Alabama during his time running the Georgia program, saying, "I mean what's everybody else's record against them? You got it? I don't either. I don't lose sleep over that because those games have been championship-caliber games?"

But Smart's Alabama problem narrative is only gaining steam. Especially now that the new sheriff in Tuscaloosa is already 2-0 against the man who seemed destined to inherit the college football throne from his former mentor Saban.

The DeBoer experience in Alabama still feels like a rollercoaster, at times. It's hard to square road losses to Vanderbilt, Oklahoma and Florida State with the fact DeBoer is now 7-0 against Smart, Texas' Steve Sarkisian and Oregon's Dan Lanning (he faced Sark and Lanning when he was at Washington). The highs like back-to-back wins over Georgia are incredibly high. The lows are lower than anything Alabama fans have experienced in decades. It's never boring or uninteresting. We began the month of September with "DeBoer buyout" a raging Google search term in the Yellowhammer state. We end it with the snapping of Smart's 33-game home win streak.

A year ago, DeBoer looked like the perfect replacement for Saban and had the No. 1 team in the country after a win over the Bulldogs. And then Alabama lost to Vanderbilt and a season that started with such promise ended without a playoff berth.

Next on Alabama's schedule? Diego Pavia and a No. 18 Vanderbilt Commodores team that is 5-0 and averaging 47.5 points per game. In a hard-fought SEC, there are no easy games, no opportunities to let up. Alabama learned that the hard way a season ago and needs to avoid a letdown after Saturday night's win. Every game remaining on Alabama's schedule is winnable, but the upcoming October slate of Vanderbilt, at Missouri and Tennessee will tell us a lot about how real this Tide team is.

On this night in Athens, at least, Alabama was the more resilient and more disciplined team than Smart's Bulldogs. Quarterback Ty Simpson looked confident and poised out there, carving up Georgia for 276 passing yards and two touchdowns. Bray Hubbard forced the only turnover of the day, giving Alabama a short field and setting up what proved to be a very important field goal. There are still plenty of concerns -- namely along the lines where the Tide can't seem to run the ball on offense or stop it much on defense -- but this team proved it could overcome a bad loss and bounce back.

At the end of DeBoer's press conference in the bowels of Sanford Stadium, he was asked about what's changed since the Florida State loss. He gave a thoughtful answer, believing the team now plays with more of an edge, before hitting on the critical question moving forward.

"Can we sustain the energy?" DeBoer said. "Can we sustain the passion? And not just for the season, not for the game, but each play."

If it can, Alabama has more than enough talent to be a playoff team and SEC Championship Game contender like all its fans hoped and expected. If it can't, there might be more losses like Florida State. For better or worse, this is what the DeBoer Alabama experience is: It is absolutely unpredictable and frustrating for those who have been fully Sabanized, but on the nights where everything is working, the Crimson Tide can still look like one of the sport's best.

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