Alabama HC Kalen DeBoer sets physicality goal after embarrassing Rose Bowl flameout

Alabama football snuck into the College Football Playoff in 2025 despite showing plenty of flaws all year. The Tide suffered some ugly losses, and even escaped with some ugly wins, during the regular season before getting blasted by Georgia in the SEC Championship Game.

After beating Oklahoma in the first round of the College Football Playoff, Alabama got a lesson in class in the quarterfinals at the Rose Bowl. Eventual national champion Indiana beat the brakes off of the Crimson Tide 38-3 on its way to an undefeated season, and that loss taught Kalen DeBoer and company what they needed to know about where to improve.

On Wednesday, DeBoer talked to former Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy about wanting to be a more physical team next season on the Always College Football podcast, according to On3 Sports.

“You work around your personnel,” DeBoer said. “I really do believe you don’t win championships without a physical nature to your program, and that happens through what you do in practice. That’s what we want to become. I know what that looks like, we’ve done it at multiple places.”

Alabama struggled on the offensive line all season, and it resulted in one of the worst rushing attacks in recent memory at Alabama. While Ty Simpson and the passing game were elite at times, DeBoer knows that you need more than that to win championships.

“I’m not going to take away from what we were at Washington and the ability to throw the football or what we were last year with Ty slinging it around to a talented group of receivers,” DeBoer said. “That’s dynamic, and you want to be as dynamic as you possibly can be. But you do need to have a physical way about you if you want to win the championships.”

Alabama has a quarterback competition ongoing between Austin Mack and Keelon Russell, but either one of those two will be capable of leading the offense. However, the Tide know that they can’t compete with the best teams in the SEC without improving in the trenches, and they plan on doing just that.

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