Saban is hanging around and causing problems for Alabama’s new coach. The last thing he needs to do is sign off on the defensive game plans each week. Kane Wommack would essentially be a defensive analyst at that point — an assistant to the assistant regional manager, to borrow a funny line from “The Office.”

DeBoer took the Alabama job to be The Guy After The Guy, inviting the comparisons to the greatest college football coach of all time, and he was always going to be raked over the coals by fans whenever his first loss came. But his first loss wasn’t supposed to be this, a setback arguably worse than any loss Saban suffered with the Tide.

Saban liked to use the phrase “rat poison,” as a way to get his players not to feel too good about themselves, to avoid letdown performances like the one we just saw from the Crimson Tide. It was frequently mocked, but it also worked.