Alabama earned the signature win of the 2024 college football season Saturday evening, holding off a furious rally from Georgia 41-34 to advance to 9-1 against the Bulldogs since 2008. More than anything, it was a statement that the Crimson Tide aren’t going anywhere, even if Nick Saban isn’t patrolling the sidelines anymore.
Alabama just traded the greatest college football coach of all time for, arguably, the best college football coaches in the game right now. The hiring of Kalen DeBoer wasn’t just a home run — it was a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the ninth inning.
With Saturday’s result in the books, DeBoer is now 29-3 in less than three full seasons as a Power Four coach. That includes a 6-0 showing against Georgia’s Kirby Smart, Texas’ Steve Sarkisian and Oregon’s Dan Lanning. Smart and Sarkisian each ranked ahead of DeBoer in CBS Sports’ list of the top 25 Power Four coaches in college football entering the 2024 season, while Lanning wasn’t far behind at No. 9.
DeBoer has only won fewer than nine games once as a coach — 2020, when Fresno State only played six games due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After carrying a Washington roster with scant few blue-chip high school prospects to the College Football Playoff National Championship last season, beating Texas in the process, DeBoer now has the keys to a Lamborghini.
To put it plainly, he’s a national title-caliber coach with a national title-caliber roster. That is a parting gift from Saban, but DeBoer was the perfect man to fully tap into it.
It’s time to stop buying the Lane Kiffin hype
Normally, Kiffin waits until Ole Miss plays either Georgia or Alabama to completely drop the ball. The Rebels have been overmatched against superior competition in recent years, which has prevented them from hitting that next level.
It didn’t take nearly as long this season. Ole MIss entered the season with such hope only to reveal itself as totally fraudulent. Losing 20-17 against a 2-2 Kentucky team when you were favored by 17.5 points is bad. Doing it at home is inexcusable.
It’s an all too familiar story for the Rebels — good, but never good enough. Ole Miss was supposed to be a whole lot better than good. Kiffin pushed his chips to the middle of the table with a loaded portal haul that took the top spot in 247Sports’ Team Transfer rankings. Many penciled the Rebels in as an automatic College Football Playoff team, if not an SEC winner, thanks to one of the easiest schedules in the entire nation.
Ole Miss should have walked to 11 wins and a postseason filled with promise. Now, the College Football Playoff seems like less of a sure thing, and that weak schedule — Ole Miss lacks a signature win without many chances left to get one — could be its undoing, especially with such an awful loss already on the ledger.
Kiffin is the Portal King, for sure, and he should be recognized for what he’s accomplished at Ole Miss thus far. It’s obvious that Kiffin has hit his ceiling, though, and it falls well short of championship heights. Expecting anything more at this point, given the evidence, would be silly.
BYU will make it to the Big 12 Championship Game
I don’t really love making proclamations about the Big 12 since it’s about as wide open as a conference race could possibly get, but few teams have looked as impressive as BYU thus far. Yes, the Cougars almost saw a big lead evaporate in a 34-28 win against Baylor, but to go on the road as underdogs and fend off the surging home team is admirable. This, after dismantling a good Kansas State team to the tune of 38-9. BYU has jumped a huge hurdle by starting conference play 2-0, and now a path to Arlington is clearer. Its toughest remaining game is likely on the road against top rival Utah. With Utes quarterback Cameron Rising’s health a weekly question, that could be a winnable game.
The Cougars also have to play Oklahoma State at home. The Cowboys are likely to plummet out of the AP Top 25 after consecutive losses to Utah and Kansas State, and they don’t look like a conference competitor thus far. Arizona at home and UCF on the road are other tough, but completely winnable, games for BYU.
Closing the year against Kansas, Arizona State and Houston, which now boast a combined record of 5-9, is as easy as it gets. All of this to say, BYU has a great shot at the title game and, given the chaos around the rest of the conference, it could even afford a loss or two on the way.
Jon Sumrall should be coaching carousel’s hottest name
That may have been Kiffin, but the outlook is certainly less exciting after the Kentucky loss. Sumrall should be at, or near, the top of most hot bods as the coaching carousel starts to spin this year.
At just 42 years old, he’s already proven himself as one of the brightest offensive minds in college football. Tulane’s 3-2 record might not jump off the page, but closer analysis shows a good football team. The Green Wave started American Athletic Conference play Saturday with a 45-10 win against a South Florida team that pushed Alabama for more than three quarters.
Tulane’s two losses both came against ranked Power Four teams. Tulane was a couple plays away from beating Kansas State and gave Oklahoma a fight before the Sooners pulled away late.
Tulane is probably the favorite to win the AAC at this point, which would be a third straight conference title for Sumrall. He’s doing all of this without longtime starting quarterback Michael Pratt and several key pieces on both sides of the ball that left after last season.
That’s not even mentioning the magical turnaround Sumrall pulled off at Troy. In 2022, he inherited a Trojans program fresh off three straight losing seasons and immediately won 23 games over the next two years, each capped by Sun Belt Conference titles.
UNLV is a College Football Playoff team
Anointing Group of Five CFP contenders hasn’t exactly gone well for this column thus far (sorry, Memphis), but UNLV seems like the next sure thing. Amid Matthew Sluka’s exit stemming from an NIL dispute, UNLV came out Saturday and beat Fresno State 59-14. Quarterback Hajj-Malik Williams, who opened the year behind Sluka, threw for 182 yards — a single-game season high for UNLV in 2024 — and three touchdowns. Williams also had 120 yards rushing and another touchdown to boot. This was also the first time that the Rebles scored more than 27 points against an FBS opponent. (They eclipsed that mark in the first half.)
UNLV is now 4-0 with two Power Four wins against Houston and Kansas on its record. Barry Odom’s squad will get another chance to pad its résumé with an upcoming home game against Syracuse. Beyond that, the Rebels should be seen as the favorites to win a strong Mountain West Conference, though an Oct. 25 matchup against Boise State looms large. Get past that and everything is in front of them.
