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Will Alabama football find success in 2025 after ‘tough’ season?

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6 days ago

January 2, 2025

Will Alabama football find success in 2025 after 'tough' season?

TAMPA, Fla. — Tyler Booker did not have lengthy to replicate.

The Alabama soccer junior offensive lineman had simply walked off the sphere, shedding the ReliaQuest Bowl to Michigan 19-13, ending a tumultuous 2024 marketing campaign that had the highs of beating Georgia at residence and LSU on the highway, and the lows of highway losses to Vanderbilt, Tennessee and Oklahoma that saved the Crimson Tide out of the School Soccer Playoff.

Booker did not have lengthy to replicate. So when he was requested how he would bear in mind the 2024 season, he took a beat.

“It was a tricky one,” Booker mentioned. “One which I’ll be taught so much from, one which has made me a greater individual, a greater chief.”

The primary 12 months of the Kalen DeBoer period was not a straightforward one for the Crimson Tide. It was “a curler coaster,” the coach mentioned, however one the place his gamers remained constant and hungry for no matter got here subsequent.

Whereas Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe saved his 2025 plans near the vest, he overtly shared his ideas on DeBoer and a training workers he’ll “proceed to understand” no matter what’s subsequent.

“Soccer is a fantastic car that lets you meet loads of nice individuals,” Milroe mentioned. “And one factor that’s for sure was assembly coach DeBoer alongside this course of. When it initially was hardship with the workers change grew to become one thing actually good from assembly him. So I can positively say that that was simply nice to be round him, be taught and simply be capable to increase my data of the sport simply being round him.”

Milroe additionally glowed about Alabama offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan: “among the best coaches I’ve been round,” who Milroe mentioned continued to push him to be his greatest.

To Milroe, DeBoer and Sheridan are two explanation why he feels Alabama has a “brilliant future.”

“The individuals perceive what must be performed so we might be the most effective model of (ourselves),” Milroe mentioned. “The usual that’s right here, the usual that’s set. And now we have loads of nice dudes within the locker room that is hungry, that is trying to get higher, that is trying to uphold the usual.”

Tim Smith did not have a message to Alabama followers after Tuesday’s loss. They’re going to really feel what they really feel, the defensive lineman mentioned.

Smith did have a message to his teammates earlier than ending his Alabama profession: proceed to play to that Crimson Tide normal, one thing, he mentioned, the gamers helped educate and uphold in a program crammed with change.

It is why he feels Alabama is ready up for achievement in 2025.

“That is simply my inside scoop,” Smith mentioned. “I see how my guys work each day, how they put together, what they put into it. Though this can be my final recreation or my final 12 months, I do know for a reality they’re going to proceed on that normal. … They’re nonetheless going to get their jobs performed, fill within the gaps, do what they’re speculated to.”