Jumbo Package: Kalen DeBoer looks for leadership, physical play in 2026

“It is different probably than what I’ve expected and experienced most years. Most years, you know who most of the guys are all the way across the board that you can really expect to lead the charge and that makes you feel good, makes you feel a little bit more comfortable. But I think our coaching staff’s doing a really good job of pushing all these guys, giving them the feedback they need to hear, not just what they want to hear. So, who do you see emerging in that leadership role? Oh by the way, guess which position group is the youngest in relation to its SEC counterparts, that also happens to be the one most criticized for its lack of physical play last season? Alabama’s projected starting five on the offensive line — Carroll, left tackle Jackson Lloyd, left guard William Sanders, center and Cal Poly transfer Racin Delgatty and right tackle and Mississippi State transfer Jayvin James — has the fewest number of snaps played of any line in the SEC.

Compared to projected starting offensive lines of every other line in the conference, Alabama’s five average 17 games of experience collectively and 693 snaps, more than 46 snaps fewer than Mississippi State, which has the second-fewest.

Alabama is projected to be the only team in the SEC without a senior or a redshirt senior starter on the offensive line while teams like Kentucky, LSU, South Carolina and Missouri, aided by the NCAA transfer portal, built some of the most experienced offensive lines in the conference. Hope for the best. Nick Kelly is as bored as any of us, so he’s debating which Alabama coaches did the best and worst in year three. **T-1. Nick Saban (2009) and Gene Stallings (1992)**

We’d be splitting hairs trying to pick between these two seasons. Both coaches won national championships in year three.

Let’s start with Stallings. In 1992, Alabama finished 13-0, won the SEC and then beat No. 1 Miami, who had won 29 consecutive games and three of the last five national championships, in the Sugar Bowl. That gave Alabama its first national championship in the post-Bryant era.

Fast forward to 2009. Saban gave Alabama its first national title since Stallings when the Crimson Tide went 14-0, won the SEC and beat No. 2 Texas in the BCS national championship game at the Rose Bowl. The Saban era was the second golden age of Alabama football, but that ‘92 team will forever be the favorite for we of a certain age. Last, people love asking Curt Cignetti about Nick Saban. “I just learned so much,” Cignetti said. “… He had a philosophy. He had been a head coach 13 or 14 years by then, right? Trial and error. And he could lay it out there where it just made so much sense. He had an organized, detailed plan for everything.

“And really after one year with (Saban), I felt like I had learned more about how to run a program than maybe the previous 28 as an assistant. And I’d come from a coaching family. My dad (the late Frank Cignetti Sr.) is a Hall of Fame coach. But my experience with coach Saban was invaluable, the sense of urgency — every day was fourth-and-1 with coach Saban. That’s the way it had to be to fight complacency and find the edge on a daily basis and be as good as you could be. I I just learned so much.”

Cignetti said Saban’s demeanor never changed, win or lose. In fact (as Alabama fans well know), he might be even more dissatisfied after a win than after a loss. That’s about it for now. Have a great day. Roll Tide.