Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Kalen DeBoer caught some heat for how he treated reporters on Saturday during the program's A-Day spring game at Bryant-Denny Stadium. Specifically, AL.com's Joseph Goodman ripped DeBoer for keeping the entire media scrum in a small area.
As Goodman would reveal, it had everything to do with concealing stats from the game, since the Crimson Tide chose not to air the game anywhere, which has unfortunately become a trend in College Football this spring outside of a handful of teams.
"There were strange mysteries and curious secrets at Alabama’s A-Day on Saturday. For reasons that went untold, the Crimson Tide tried its best to quarantine reporters inside the north end zone recruiting room during the spring scrimmage. I’ve never seen anything like it. Writers looked like dorky rats in a cage. My initial impression of coach Kalen DeBoer’s latest effort to replace Nick Saban: If only Alabama were as tough on the field as it was with the press trying to cover this team," Goodman wrote.
"It’s no secret around college football that Alabama is trending down with DeBoer. The West Coast coach is going into his third season with Alabama. It’s a critical spring. Every detail is important. And some of them, like the official stats from A-Day, are being treated like state secrets. Alabama’s bizarre decision to isolate reporters at A-Day included withholding statistics from the press."
Many College Football coaches on their way out burned bridges with the media. This is certainly a situation to monitor throughout the rest of the year.
Kalen DeBoer had plenty to hide from Alabama media at A-Day
Truthfully, the stats don't matter in an intrasquad spring game where some players have a no-contact helmet. Hiding that from the media is strange and easy to clown, as Goodman showed. Truthfully, though, DeBoer had plenty to hide on a sad Saturday in Tuscaloosa.
While redshirt freshman QB Keelon Russell was the star of the afternoon, DeBoer's transfer from the Washington Huskies, Austin Mack, is still not ready to start, and may never be at this rate. Plus, North Carolina State Wolfpack transfer Noah Rogers went down with an injury. That's a freak thing, and extremely unfortunate. It made one wonder what the point of the spring game even was.
There were no running backs who came away inspiring any new confidence in Ryan Grubb's system. Worst yet, there was a lack of enthusiasm and burst from the defense, which was called out on social media. The "Bama Standard" these days is unrecognizable from the heyday of Alabama football.
It's understandable why DeBoer didn't want his Crimson Tide on display for the world to see. Alabama is simply nothing worth tuning into, since, like the state of the world, the product feels like it's teetering on the brink of collapse.