While Deion Sanders’ team is often associated with controversies, the real controversy lies within Alabama and their new Head Coach, Kalen DeBoer. Alabama is constantly in the limelight before the coming college football season, but this time for all wrong or we can say illegal reasons.

Many people refrain from using words like “stealing,” but Chuck Martin, Head Coach of Miami (Ohio), is not hesitant. Coaches typically avoid talking about player transfers, but Martin made an exception by openly talking about how Alabama allegedly illegally took their star kicker. “We didn’t lose him. He’s at Alabama,” Martin said when asked about losing kicker Graham Nicholson this offseason. 

“We know exactly where he’s at, Alabama stole our kicker”. Losing, or having Alabama steal, their kicker could be costly for the Miami RedHawks as Nicholson was one of the key players, winning the Lou Groza Award after kicking 27 field goals last season.  However, instead of returning to Miami as a senior, Nicholson transferred to Alabama via the portal during the offseason. Even Kalen DeBoer denied the allegations by simply saying “Graham entered the portal and we reached out to him. So that’s how it goes, right?”  Even if Kalen is right this is not the first time the Tides have been accused of doing illegal things. 

The first knock-out Albert Means  

Alabama has this reputation of working things under the table that made a huge impact on Albert Means, former defensive lineman for Trezevant High School in the year 2000. As a high school student, he had a bright future ahead of him, but it was hampered by his former high school coach, Lynn Lange asking teams like Georgia and Alabama to pay a hefty amount just for a visit, the money was apparently secretly paid by a booster name Logan Young, he was allegedly delivering players like Means to Alabama. Reports say Lynn paid Albert $30,000 out of his $200,000 bribe but there is no conclusive evidence for the same. 

However, the NCAA couldn’t catch the culprits as Young died of an accident during the trial. The head coach, Mike Dubose, was unaware of the wrongdoing and Lange got probation. None of the actual people except for Means, who never recovered his form, received a guilty sentence. Many years after the incident in an interview with a local television station, he said “I didn’t have a clue. I was just a guy playing football, I’m in Alabama then boom!” Albert Means could have been a big name in College Football, it could be the situation or Alabama’s wrong take, but it cost him a big time.

The Crimson Tide Bribe saga continues 

Destroying one player’s career was not enough for the Tides. In the year 2017, the NCAA Committee on Infractions placed the Alabama men’s basketball program on three years’ probation after former associate athletic director Kobie Baker accepted bribes from a player’s father. The NCAA charged both Crimson Tide and Baker a Level I-Mitigated rules violation and Level 1-Aggravated violation. The NCAA fined the team $5,000 plus 1% of their operating cost and issued a 10-year show-cause order for Kobie Baker.

The NCAA said Baker received at least $3,000 from his series of meetings with the father of an unnamed Tide player and financial advisor Marty Blazer. According to the sources, the player is former Tide star Collin Sexton, who played one season at Alabama in 2017-18 and was a first-round pick by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2018 NBA draft. Even Kobie accepted meeting the advisor as he wanted to access student-athletes and their parents. Well, this was surely not just a meeting that caused a bad impact on Alabama’s reputation.

The textbook scandal 

Alabama should change its name to Scandals as this was the third time in 15 years of facing probation. The University of Alabama received 24-hour notice from the NCAA in 2009 regarding the status of their student-athletes being involved in a textbook scandal. Some might have been receiving extra benefits by selling and letting fellow mates their vouchers to get books. 

Although Alabama did follow the investigation procedure and turned itself in, the shocking part was that 200 athletes were involved in the scandal and there is no guarantee that anything the athletic department did will save the students from the NCAA. Well, there was no confirmation regarding the names or people involved in it but the continuity of the illegal trend was a big mark on the team and its future.

Despite these challenges and allegations the Crimson’s have managed to excel at their gameplay throughout the seasons. Whether it’s under Nick Saban or new HC Kalen DeBoer analysts predict Alabama will excel in the upcoming season as according to a prediction, they will perform well with a win total of around 9.5 games, following slight uncertainty because of the transfer portals.

Every coin has 2 sides as Alabama is entering a new era of football under head coach Kalen DeBoer, with the No.5 ranking in the preseason AP Poll there are still high hopes for the team to perform well and mark its presence in the upcoming season.