What If There Were Two Coaches? Would DeBoer or Prime Pass the Vibe Check?

Two teams, Alabama and Colorado, were in new territory on Sunday morning when they lost games that put them out of the College Football Playoff. Not that people weren’t making the case for them to get in, even though each team lost three times during the regular season. But for the first time in the new playoff era, they make the case for a three-loss playoff.

In the present day, I am watching Monday Night Football on my couch while looking through TikTok. Suddenly, two videos appear in front of me: the Monday press conference from Kalen DeBoer and the post-game speech from Colorado head coach Deion Sanders.

What caught my attention right away was how different their voices were, even though they were talking about pretty much the same things that happened on the pitch. Three-loss teams that aren’t consistent: they have some big wins, but their losses are especially bad when you consider who they lost to. Also, both DeBoer and Sanders still feel like they are in the process of changing coaches, with DeBoer taking over for Nick Saban in his first year and Sanders trying to rebuild the culture at Colorado from the ground up.

BetMGM says that both of these teams still have a chance to make the playoffs. The odds for Alabama to win the title are +2500, and the odds for Colorado to win are +20000. When it comes to college football, momentum is everything. So let’s not take Vegas’s word for it and start doing playoff math. It’s not a question of “Can we make the playoffs?” How about you? Can you win during rivalry week, or has Uncle Mo left you? Now is the time to check in on these two three-loss playoff teams.

Starting with the state of Colorado. When it comes to resumes, the Buffs have the worst right now. CNN says that the Buffs’ RPI is No. 24 in the country. Two of their three losses came to unranked teams, Nebraska and Kansas. To make the playoffs, they will need to win the BIG 12 Championship.

Colorado will need some help to make it to the Big 12 Championship. Right now, the Buffs are tied for first place in the Big 12 with Arizona State, Iowa State, and BYU. To get in, the Buffs will need at least one of these teams to lose on rivalry weekend. If not for BYU, Arizona State and Iowa State would have the upper hand in a tie, so Colorado should win. The Buffs go right to the Big 12 Championship if they win and two of the four teams that were tied lose.

Coach Prime didn’t seem to be thinking about the future in his words after the Buffs’ loss to Kansas. Instead, he put the blame for the loss on his players and told them to step up and finish the year.

“None of you can say you played your best game.” There is no one in this room who can say, “You gave your all, you did your best.” This is what Coach Prime told Bleacher Report.

“And you see the result? The problem is that you got drunk on success, and when you’re drunk on success, you start believing what they’re saying…” you went out there, and we felt small. Everyone—coaches, players, and fans. We were put down when we went out there.

Sanders didn’t become known as “Prime Time” by being polite, and it’s clear that he doesn’t like losing. Sanders doesn’t say the tired old line, “You need to keep hope alive and take care of business yourselves.” Instead, he tells his guys they are being too comfortable.

Even though Sander was critical at first, it was his demand for an answer that stood out.

“But where you go from here is what it is…” What’s next? What did you get out of this moment? What did you learn?Why is this moment about football? It’s about life, and this is a great lesson for life. “Let’s grow from it and learn from it.”

Bernie Sanders isn’t worried about the playoffs or the noise from other teams. He worries about how his players will handle this loss and how they will grow as players. Sanders passes the vibe test and keeps things going by stressing that his team needs to learn from this and move on.

With DeBoer’s comments on Monday, Alabama didn’t seem to have the same drive. The Crimson Tide still have a small chance of making the playoffs. This week, the AP has Alabama ranked 13th. If they can get a big win over Auburn and a few teams in the top 10 lose, Alabama could get in.

On the other hand, DeBoer lacked Sanders’ tone of rebellion and energy. It was the clip that rolled across my page. People asked what the difference was between a game Alabama lost and one the other team won.

“When you lose, you lose. That’s just sickening every time,” DeBoer said in statements that AL.com posted to YouTube. “We didn’t live up to our expectations.” The other team didn’t play as well as we can. That’s what we look at. That’s where we start. That’s the feeling we need to get rid of because we need to know that we’re capable and that we were very consistent for a month but not on Saturday.

DeBoer’s words about flushing it are the most different from Deion’s, and they don’t pass the vibe check in the end. Even though the inconsistency was cleaned up, it came back against South Carolina, Tennessee, and Oklahoma. Alabama seems to say, “Let’s get past it and get back to the Alabama way” when things go wrong. But Alabama doesn’t seem like Alabama when they’ve lost three games and only lost one by three points.

I know that the things said about DeBoer in the locker room on Saturday were probably not the same, and I know how easy it is for Alabama fans to get upset in their first year without Saban.

Things just don’t feel right in Tuscaloosa right now, so I don’t think it’s time for that. There needs to be a change, and the playoff dreams are over if they don’t win the Iron Bowl. Alabama doesn’t need to be proud of their loss to Oklahoma; they need to take it in stride and learn from it.