Roy Wood Jr. begs Alabama fans to give Kalen DeBoer a chance in Year Two

After Nick Saban retired, the Alabama Crimson Tide turned to Kalen DeBoer to lead the program moving forward. However, the program struggled with its consistency in 2024 and ended up losing three regular season games, leading to some concern about the job DeBoer is doing.

Former Birmingham radio personality Roy Wood Jr., who works as a comedian and is on a CNN show called Have I Got News For You, is an Alabama fan and he wants others to have more patience. During an appearance on First Take, he got into a debate with Stephen A. Smith about DeBoer where Wood would argue for patience going into his second season as the Alabama head coach.

“That tone for a gentleman who is just now getting settled,” Roy Wood Jr. said. “He ain’t even got all his mail forwarded. He just got there. He lost three [games]. He lost three.”

At that point, Smith cut in to point out that one of those losses was to Vanderbilt. Still, Wood insisted that it was just three regular season losses, not counting the ReliaQuest Bowl loss, and argued that he deserves more time to have a chance to prove himself.

“Three, though,” Wood said. “It’s just three games… Nick Saban didn’t do that when he first came through the door. Give the man a chance. He just got there.”

Despite the three regular season losses, Alabama did nearly make it to the College Football Playoff in Kalen DeBoer’s first season with the program. In fact, Alabama finished in the final selection committee rankings at 11th in the country. That made them the top-ranked team to miss the Playoff field.

“Alabama fans are impatient,” Wood said. “They’re entitled. We are the Yankees fans of college football. 1,000 percent… But all of these fanbases are going to be a little more — the fact that they had to run the table at Ohio State for them to just go, ‘Alright. You aight.’ I don’t know what the new norm is gonna be.”

Kalen DeBoer reveals what positives Alabama can take forward into 2025

Following the 2024 season, Kalen DeBoer shared what he sees as positives that Alabama can take into 2025.

“Every time you’re in the locker room and you have something like this, it’s disappointing. But I think there’s a lot of things that you take from it. I know that the guys that hung in there, that probably played their last game in the crimson and white, they wouldn’t have had it any other way as far as to show the grit, show the determination, show the competitiveness. They stayed the course,” DeBoer said.

“There’s a whole lot more, I just think, that really goes into the last 12 months. People see what happens on a Saturday, but it’s guys choosing to stay here, guys choosing to go from one week to the next when you’re on a little bit of a roller coaster through the middle of the season, and as long as we learn from it, then to me, then it can be a success moving forward.”

Alabama and Kalen DeBoer will open the 2025 season at Florida State on August 30th.