Joel Klatt expects the heat to be turned up on Kalen DeBoer after loss to Tennessee

Following a loss to Tennessee in Week 8, FOX’s Joel Klatt believes the heat is being turned up on Kalen DeBoer and Alabama.

The Crimson Tide suffered their second loss of the season, but it’s been an ugly past couple of weeks as a whole for DeBoer’s bunch, since their landmark victory over Georgia. On the latest episode of The Joel Klatt Show, the namesake tried to make sense of Alabama’s season thus far, and where the team goes from here.

“First thing that we learned from Tennessee beating Alabama, Alabama is not going to the SEC Championship Game, and will not win the SEC. So, you can take them out of the equation of potentially getting to Atlanta. There’s now seven teams ahead of Bama in the standings. Seven, in Kalen DeBoer’s first year, and this is a team that is reeling right now. You can tell they’re reeling,” Klatt explained. “The defense, which I thought was a problem a couple of weeks ago, and was, has played much better, and now the offense is struggling. Jalen Milroe, multiple turnovers in the last three games, since that Georgia win. He threw that bad INT in the end zone versus Tennessee. He needs to play better, and the problem is there’s too much pressure Milroe to be perfect, because the team isn’t great around him right now. They don’t have enough right now.

“They couldn’t stop the run, and that was an issue in particular in the second half, and I think that heat is going to get turned way up on Kalen DeBoer, because I don’t think people in Tuscaloosa — as much as they’ll tell you that they kind of understood, ‘We get it, Nick is leaving and that standard might not be here this year,’ and then you see the last three weeks and you’re like, ‘What in the world?’ We’ve got guys faking jump-shots on QB sneak, and it’s like, ‘This ain’t it.’ It’s the first time losing two games before November since 2007. That’s Nick Saban’s first year. They only lose two regular season games in four of Saban’s 17 seasons, and they’ve already got two losses in this one. … They’re the fifth-most penalized team in college football. That is staggering.

“Alabama is — they’re in a tough spot. So now the question is, if they’re not going to the SEC Championship Game, is Alabama going to make the College Football Playoff, in its first expanded year? I told you way back when, when I said what were the expectations. I told you, Kalen DeBoer doesn’t have to be Nick Saban, but he can’t miss the Playoff. He can’t miss the Playoff. If you miss the first 12-team Playoff, and you’re Alabama with Kalen DeBoer, that’s alarm bells in Tuscaloosa. Guess what? I think now, after losing to Tennessee, I think Alabama might control their own destiny to go to the Playoff, but only if they win out.”

Alas, an Alabama team with two losses and a win over Georgia would likely get into the College Football Playoff, but it also hinges on some help from other teams in the country. One thing is for sure, Joel Klatt and the rest of the college football world know Kalen DeBoer can’t afford another loss anytime soon in Tuscaloosa, or his first season on the job could spiral into a disastrous one.