Well, this certainly explains a lot, doesn’t it?
Rejoice, for this is the day that we Gump, and fittingly, it is Gump Day.
But, I fear — as the Bamasphere’s most honest commentator (even being called “Negagump”) — that we must address one of the flies in our DeBoer Chardonnay: Playing erratically on the road, and especially playing like shit the first time he’s visited a new stadium:
Under head coach Kalen DeBoer, the Alabama Crimson Tide seemingly struggled in new environments on the road. In 2024, Alabama won just two games away from Bryant-Denny Stadium, with losses to Vanderbilt, Tennessee, and Oklahoma on the road. One of Alabama’s road wins, at Wisconsin, was a place Kalen DeBoer was familiar with after his stint as Indiana’s offensive coordinator during his time in the Big Ten.
In 2025, Alabama again struggled in new places, losing its season opener against Florida State in Tallahassee before falling in the SEC Championship in Atlanta, and again losing away from Bryant-Denny Stadium in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. The Tide also struggled in Columbia, South Carolina, Columbia, Missouri, Athens, Georgia, and Auburn, Alabama, winning each of those games by one score.
In the lone road game to start the 2026 season for the Crimson Tide, Alabama looked like the Crimson Tide of old, scoring 32 unanswered points in the second half en route to a dominating win at Kentucky, 45-17. The Tide now faces another new place for DeBoer and many of his players, traveling to Starkville, Mississippi, this weekend to face No. 16 Mississippi State.
That interested me, so I went back and checked his entire FBS coaching record, and it popped up time and time again. The first time through the rotation on the road, his teams struggle. It wasn’t just at Alabama. Check this out:
Fresno State 55% OTR:
- Nevada L
- UNLV W
- New Mexico L
- SJSU W
- Utah State W
- Hawaii L
- SDSU W
- Wyoming L
- Oregon L
Washington:
- The Huskies were an odd case. every single one of his lost games at UW on the road. But the team drastically underperformed as well. In 2022, he lost his first two road games, before rebounding down the stretch, but his next four were all decided by one score, and UW was favored in double digits in three of those (gee, sound familiar?). The next season, in 2023, he again was flaky on the road, winning three road games as a DD favorite by a TD or less. But, the Huskies were at least winning. You could not say that necessarily in Tuscaloosa.
As the article documents, that same pattern showed up at ‘Bama too: Losses (often as a double digit favorite) or underperformances on the road the first time he’s been to a new place.
To kick off the Tide’s ’26 road slate, it seemed we were getting more of the same, as ‘Bama fell down early in Lexington before striking for 32 unanswered. Let’s hope that Starville, which poses its own unique challenges with those damn cowbells, does not get the Tide off-schedule, and that perhaps he’s learned a bit more about life on the road in the SEC. Knock on wood.
It could also be a matter of finally getting settled in. He has been coaching FBS for seven seasons now. And hard as it is to believe, Alabama is his longest stop at anyone place, now going on three seasons. He finally has a team he wants to see, and is finally settled in as a coach. Let’s hope that’s the case.
This was all-but a nullity after the June settlement agreement: Following his arrest for the hippy lettuce, Aden Holloway had his prosecution deferred in exchange for several conditions being met, including restitution, fines and costs, drug screening and evals, and completion of the Second Chance program.
People were howling because it seemed like a hometown sentence. But that is honestly the deal almost anyone would get in Alabama if they were a first-time non-violent drug offender arrested on possession, and had a stable home, employment, character references, and were earning a college degree. Biz is exactly who that program was made for; you don’t make felons out of first-time people with weed for personal consumption in their homes.
In any case, Aden completed his requirements, and the charges have now been dismissed. He’s tabula rasa, and is a free man without charges or convictions dogging him.
Up next: Cutting down those nets. #BOG #GumpSoHard
I’m not a fan of Brooks generally. There are guys who’ve played at this level who are far better line analysts (Cole Cubelic and Landon Tengwell come to mind), but even in this hard-bitten Dawg fan can’t help but notice what we all have: Alabama’s offensive line finally looks like an Alabama offensive line again. And they’re playing like it:
You what we say, right? Klemm is him.
What a legacy, man. Go down as the GOAT of college football. Retire, head to the booth, and win an Emmy your first year. Congressional hearings. Legislative pitchman. And still, after all these years, the main character for all of college football — that’s not a personal opinion. That’s per the data…and you know how we do love our data around here:
LOLSU
Let’s check in on Baton Rouge and see fares Sweaty McGee’s backdoor attempt to sign a European pro roster to play college ball.
Oh.
LOL. Expect to see several more defections back to Europe and Israel too. The NCAA isn’t budging on this. One player is already ineligible (Luis), and now one of four projected European players has headed back across the frigid, violent Atlantic. Good luck suing him too…international treaties are invoked when one files a suit across continents. And, in this case, I dare you to find someone willing to make personal service on him in Gaza.
I can’t wait / hope for this to explode dramatically in all their faces.
This is a very big deal. The NCAA SAAC, the designated point man for things pertaining to NIL rights and the like, have endorsed the PCSA, recently passed by the Senate and now hung up in the House. Congresscritters crying about student rights no longer have that shibboleth to invoke, when the students themselves are saying “we need these guardrails.”
Big, big deal.
Very cool feature here from 100.9 on football culture and traditions in Alabama. Worth the read.
Football culture isn’t just about what happens on the field. Food is a huge part of the experience. Barbecue, burgers, wings, snacks, and tailgate recipes become part of game-day traditions. It’s some of the best food you’ll ever taste. And the smells are amazing. Music is just as important, whether it’s coming from a marching band, a tailgate speaker, or someone’s television before kickoff.
Then there are the traditions that make every fan base unique—the chants, songs, colors, signs, and rituals that people repeat year after year, game after game. Dixieland Delight is a favorite fan tradition.
At the end of the day, football is about much more than winning or losing. Bragging rights, of course, and memories.
It’s about sitting beside your family and watching a game. It’s about standing in the crowd with thousands of other fans. It’s about Friday nights under the lights and Saturday afternoons spent with friends.
Years later, people may not remember every score. They may remember who they were with, what they ate, the music they heard, and how they felt when their team took the field. Most Bama fans will probably remember specific scores too.
That’s the real power of football in Alabama.
Josh dug this up over at Athlon, so hat tip to him. And for all I know, he may have already linked it too:
Man, how damn good exactly is Russell? We knew we were seeing something special when Tua walked out on the field as a freshman. But what Keelon is doing in his first four starts requires some new sort of adjectives:
Russell is defying the odds as a young quarterback by putting up incredible efficiency numbers.
Over four games, Russell has posted exemplary EPA/play (0.51) and EPA/pass (0.41) figures while completing 69.4% of his passes, per Hudl IQ. He’s averaging 14.3 yards per completion and is creating chunk pass plays 29.1% of the time and explosive plays on 11.9% of all completions, per Hudl IQ.
Those numbers are almost unheard of for a quarterback four games into his first campaign. They’re so impressive that he’s surpassing much more experienced quarterbacks across the SEC, like Texas quarterback Arch Manning, LSU’s Sam Leavitt and South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers, and lapping the likes of Oklahoma’s John Mateer and Texas A&M’s Marcel Reed, two players with College Football Playoff experience from a year ago.
He’s not just completing easy passes to wide-open receivers, either. He’s notched an incredibly impressive 7.4% completion percentage over expectation (CPOE), which is an indicator of how often he completes passes given the difficulty of his throws.
But, as the Athlon story spells out in painful detail, Alabama isn’t the only jawdroppingly great young signal caller in this contest. Starkville has their own in Heisman candidate Kamario Taylor, who Kane Wommack said (in fairness) was the “best he has seen since he’s been here.”
The 6-foot-4, 230 pound sophomore is 83-of-120 (69%) for 1,192 yards with 14 touchdowns to one interception, while adding 37 carries for 185 yards and one score through four games this season. Taylor ranks 10th in the FBS in passing yards and is tied for first in passing touchdowns.
“I think he is already operating as an elite quarterback in the SEC,” Wommack continued. “He does such a great job in the deep throws. He’s got great touch. Leads his receiving corps out there, which is a very very fast group. I think they’ve got multiple guys that have documented a 10.2, 10.3 speeds, whether it was coming out of high school or whatever, and then obviously GPS and all those things. You get some very high numbers that they’re putting up right now. So he’s doing a nice job in that regard. Really clean with a lot of his RPO reads and delivery of the ball. They do a great job of leading people with those RPOs so that they can create explosive plays after catch. He just has a great feel and great touch right now, and so he is, again, he is probably as good as we have seen in the last three years at the quarterback position.”
Bro is from Knoxville, and was on the Auburn staff. What did you expect from “Don Julio.” LOL. Felony arrest for leaking recruiting information is such an SEC crime:
Auburn police arrested David Rudolph Jenrath on Monday on “felony charges of theft of trade secrets and computer tampering.”
Jenrath, a former staff member of the Auburn football team, is accused of sharing Auburn’s recruiting plans with up to 11 other schools.
Court filings show that the former staffer transmitted “confidential athletics information” without the program’s consent. This includes “disclosing, using, controlling or taking computer programs and data “with the intent to harass Auburn University Athletics by disclosing trade secrets of Auburn University Athletics to their opponents.”
The 24-year-old Jenrath was retained when new head coach Alex Golesh took over the program in January. He lasted only a few months and was fired in the spring. Jenrath reportedly used a fake email address, referred to as “Don Julio,” to share 10 documents containing information on high school recruits the Tigers were targeting for the classes of 2027, 2028, and 2029.
This won’t shock anyone, but the seemingly-annual ‘Bama/Georgia game is going to be another primetime night game in Tuscaloosa:
ATHENS — The SEC has announced a game time and TV network for Georgia’s next road game against the Alabama Crimson Tide.
The Oct. 10 game is set for a 7:30 p.m. ET start on ABC.
As of this writing, it is set to be Georgia’s first ranked foe of the season, as the Crimson Tide is ranked No. 7 in the most recent AP Poll. Georgia is the No. 2 ranked team in the country.
And, finally, your moment of levity. And it is funny as hell.
That’s all for now. We’ll be back later with some of our controversial content — and it’s been a while since we’ve unleashed some. This time, on the role of Title IX investigations on campus and the Cornell rape case. Should be a doozy. And, we have this week’s Giving Away Money up for you already. So go check that out as well.
Have a great morning, thanks for dropping by, and take care.
Roll Tide
He’s not too bad haha. After all, some nickname him “Bama Brooks”,
@So, he did other schools a favor by letting them know what players to avoid.@
The @ tags don’t work for Sartalics here… The closest we have is the Code button that looks like this in the edit bar: </>
does the text go inside the tag?
<like this/>
or is the slash of a normal HTML tag being used as a placeholder
<like this>?
Nevermind.
you just hit that tag icon </>
I’ve just been doing it that way since everyone here knows what it means. However, since there is a way, it seems, I will give it a whirl.
Oh, Auburn recruits them. They just can’t sign them.
Sorry for the delay on this one. The DeBoer segment required a lot of research.
It’s okay, I find things to worry about with DeBoer with or without your research. It was nice to see this team gain confidence during the KY and FSU games, but how this staff hasn’t instilled more confidence in them is… I don’t know, golf clap, I guess.
IU did not, in fact, play at Wisconsin (or indeed play Wisconsin at all) during DeBoer’s lone year on staff there (2019). So Bama actually scored BIG (point margin) road wins in two new road environments in 2024 (including Bryant Denny west). I’d argue the three losses reflected adjusting to going on the road in the SEC in general rather than dealing with specific environments for the first time. Tallahassee aside, ’25’s road woes were not terribly different from the home ones. So I’m inclined to think this is somewhat of a nothingburger.
Also:
UW played UCLA in the Rose Bowl during the 2022 regular season, so again not his first time there.
But just for fun, here’s a quick rundown of KDB first-time stadia we will/may encounter for the rest of this season (I omitted all analysis of potential non-playoff bowls, because this is Gump Day):
Good research!
Also — perhaps a national tour of all the football stadiums should be on KDB’s itinerary in the offseason, so he’s seen them all.
I wasn’t the moron who said that he went to Sconnie at Indiana, when he plainly didn’t.
Not every stadium he lost, and he’s had some blowouts the first time he’s been places
I brought up the eight games in two years at Washington, where he struggled to one score games or lost with six of those as a double digit favorite in new stadiums.
And his five & nine record on the road in new places at Fresno State
Yeah, I was quite surprised to see Wyatt Fulton on the byline of something so shoddily researched. I’ve generally appreciated his work.
Ditto. It is an easily found fact too.
I reckon you have to get support when you can get it. Funny as Fuck!
So absconding with a teams recruiting information/plan is a felony? Ohh Kirby….
I’m glad I’m not the only person who both thought of Kirby, and thought that that sounded like a Kirby complaint. LOL.
I think you’re seriously underestimating the ability of our government officials to hit their tried and true virtue signal “They don’t know what’s best for them so I’ll decide instead”