Paul Finebaum didn’t mince words when addressing the current status of second-year Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer after the eighth-ranked Crimson Tide fell to unranked Florida State, 31-17, on Saturday night in Tallahassee. It was DeBoer’s fifth loss in his first 14 games as Alabama’s coach, and was the program’s first season-opening loss in 24 years.

“It was a shattering loss for Kalen DeBoer. He had built up tremendous good will in the offseason. People believed in him after failing to believe in him at the end of last season. But there’s no escaping it,” Finebaum said on Sunday morning’s SportsCenter. “You started hearing words last night like ‘hot seat,’ ‘buyout,’ which my the way is $70 million. So it was get to the Playoffs or bust, and right now he lost a golden opportunity, because he has about seven or eight tougher games than he had yesterday. His path is very narrow, and his hot seat is very scorching.”

The loss continued a disturbing trend of road woes for Alabama under DeBoer after he went 2-3 on the road last season, including devastating upset losses at Vanderbilt, Tennessee and Oklahoma that led to the nine-win Crimson Tide being left out of the 2024 College Football Playoff.

And while there’s plenty of opportunity for Alabama to bounce back this season, it’s an uphill climb, especially given the challenges ahead in the SEC. DeBoer and the Tide return to Tuscaloosa for next week’s game against Louisiana-Monroe on Saturday (7:45 pm ET, SEC Network).

Johnny Manziel says Alabama aura completely gone: ‘Nobody’s scared of them boys’

Fire up the takes machines, because Alabama has lost its season opener. Florida State stunned the perennial powerhouse in its 2025 debut on Saturday, leading to some major questions for Kalen DeBoer and his squad.

It simply didn’t look like the Alabama fans have grown accustomed to seeing over the better part of the last two decades. And former Texas A&M quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel is sounding the alarm.

“The one thing that I will say that I think… in the past, you walk in, face an Alabama team, you’ve probably got a little fear,” Manziel said on the Nightcap podcast with Shannon Sharpe and Chad Ochocinco Johnson. “This is ‘Bama, the team that’s been a dynasty. You’ve got a little fear. That fear aspect of what Alabama is is completely gone. And nobody’s scared of them boys. Not Vandy, not Kentucky, not nobody.”

If Florida State carried any extra intimidation factor going into the game against Alabama it certainly didn’t show. The Seminoles were the better team from jump.

The bigger question, after DeBoer dropped a fourth game in two seasons in which he was a 13-point favorite or larger, is whether Alabama is cooked. There’s a lot of season left ahead, but the aura seems to be slipping away. That’s bad news for DeBoer.

“Nobody’s walking in seeing Alabama on the schedule and having any kind of shake, any kind of fear, nothing,” Manziel said. ” They’ve been getting wiped the last couple years. You say that buyout’s deep, but like they’re not going to sit here and let this stand for sure. They’ll go find it in the woods somewhere.”

— On3’s Thomas Goldkamp contributed to this report.