Josh Pate Tells Hard Truth About Alabama: It’s Not Coming Back, It Never Will

If you were a college football fan in the 2010s, there was no question that Alabama was the top dog every year.

The Crimson Tide under Nick Saban weren't just the model for every one of his contemporaries to follow, they were one of the most historically dominant dynasties the sport had to offer in any era.

But after Alabama's recent embarrassment in the Rose Bowl at the hands of the Indiana Hoosiers, the same questions that have lingered since Saban's departure are starting to pop up again.

READ: Josh Pate - The Dabo Model Isn't Working Anymore

How in the world is head coach Kalen DeBoer going to get the Tide back to where they were under Saban?

On the latest episode of his podcast, college football commentator, Josh Pate, didn't mince words.

"He’s not going to," Pate said flatly. "And it’s a waste of time to expect him to."

To be clear, that's not any knock on DeBoer's coaching abilities.

The second year Alabama coach is a more than capable football mind and steward of a big college football program; he didn't just forget to coach after moving to Tuscaloosa.

But, as Pate explains, there isn't anyone on Earth that could get Bama back to the Saban era of dominance — not even Saban himself.

"That’s literal Saban," Pate said. "If he came back tomorrow, he wouldn’t recreate what he created a decade ago."

The reason for that is quite simple: the game has changed.

As I discussed a few days ago, Clemson's Dabo Swinney is failing at his job right now because he is trying to stick to a model that is outdated in today's game.

Trying to recreate what Saban accomplished a decade ago would be trying to do something similarly antiquated.

Pate compared it to something Mario Cristobal once said about Miami.

"The U is never going to be back," Cristobal told him years ago — not as pessimism, but realism. The Hurricanes of the late ’80s and early ’90s were a product of a different era. You can’t recreate them. You can only build what comes next.

That’s exactly how Alabama needs to think now.

The game of college football is different.

You can no longer stack five-star prospects and shelve them on your bench to create superior depth.

NIL and the transfer portal has made a lot of the Power 4 schools a lot more level in terms of competitive balance, so pining for the days of Bama rolling the ball out and "out-talenting" teams is a fool's errand.

Pate made it clear he still believes Alabama will be fine under DeBoer, if he addresses the obvious issues.

That includes staffing.

"I’m very confident you’ll see staff moves there," Pate said, hinting that while there are "really good people" in the building, there are also some who "don’t belong."

Regardless of what ends up happening in Alabama, it's safe to say they've been humbled, and those who haven't will get the message quickly.

This doesn't mean the Crimson Tide will never win a championship again, it just means it's time to accept they aren't the Death Star they once were under Nick Saban.

The sooner their fanbase accepts that, the sooner they can move forward toward a new era and stop chasing ghosts.