How coaches salaries and the NIL bill affects college football
Dan Wolken breaks down the annual college football coaches compensation package to discuss salaries and how the NIL bill affects them.
Sports Pulse
NORMAN, Okla. − Let’s be honest: The assignment wasn’t that difficult.
Beating Oklahoma in 2024 hasn’t been that hard. Five teams have done it, and LSU could make it six next weekend. Heck, Houston nearly took down the Sooners, and the Cougars don’t even crack the top 10 of the Big 12 standings. Yet, on the brink of a berth in the SEC championship game and potentially a spot in the College Football Playoff, No. 7 Alabama could not.
The Crimson Tide looked downright listless on Saturday in a 24-3 loss to the Sooners that vanquished all its championship goals for the season. First-year coach Kalen DeBoer’s initial campaign will end with a cold nose on a warm window, on the outside looking in on all the playoff fun. With Alabama absorbing three losses in the regular season for the first time since 2010, that’s exactly where it belongs.
Oklahoma pulled off just its second SEC win of the season, and did so over a heavily favored Alabama team to reach bowl eligibility and earn the only 2024 victory on which it can hang its offseason hat.
Meanwhile, the Alabama offense went in the tank.
In the first half, the Crimson Tide sputtered with an ineffective running game and some costly but not catastrophic mistakes, such as dropped passes by wide receiver Ryan Williams and tight end CJ Dippre.
As it turned out, the offense was saving the big mistakes for the second half.
Quarterback Jalen Milroe, in perhaps the worst performance of his career, threw an interception on Alabama’s first possession of the second half, resulting in an OU touchdown and a 17-3 lead. One series later, he threw a pick-six to Kip Lewis that sealed the win for the Sooners, and as the only Alabama player with a chance to make the tackle on the play, offered a weak effort in missing that tackle at the 16-yard line.
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He wasn’t alone in playing poorly.
Alabama’s offensive line, in late November, looked like it was still working through September kinks. The running game was largely non-existent. No rhythm was ever found. Even the one glimmer of offensive hope, a spectacular would-be touchdown catch by Williams early in the fourth quarter, was erased on a highly questionable penalty that drew DeBoer’s ire with the officiating crew.
By that point, DeBoer’s anger probably had as much to do with the entirety of the night as it did with the penalty.
After all, he was witnessing a season slip away, not just a touchdown.
Having lost earlier this year to Vanderbilt and Tennessee, Alabama had lost any margin for error. Every game it’s played since losing to the Volunteers has essentially been a playoff game, and it had navigated three wins since then to stay alive in the playoff hunt.
It’s worth noting that as beatable as Oklahoma has been this season, its defense has been stingy. Despite a Sooners offense putting it in regular peril, OU entered play against Alabama having allowed just 319 yards and 21.9 points per game, averages that both came down even more on Saturday.
Credit Oklahoma for playing its best game of the season.
Save credit to Alabama for another day.
Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of Crimson Cover TV on WVUA-23. Reach him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on X.com @chasegoodbread.