I agree with almost everything you wrote. As a 55-year-old, lifetime Bama fan, I understand Bama football expectations as well as anyone here except the few who can regale us with stories of the Ears Whitworth days.Unfortunately, this is what happens when you're a $10 million/year head coach for one of the most storied football programs in history, and in less than one year and four games (into the second season) you've already had five games where you, your staff and your teams looked completely unprepared. Not one person on this board (or any Bama fan I know) minds losing as long as the team looks prepared, plays hard, is competitive, and we just lost. But there will never be any leeway for showing up with a team that looks unprepared, plays unprepared and the coaching staff appears to have no clue either. There will NEVER be, or should be, any leeway for that. It also doesn't help your case when other coaches at other P4 programs are doing better with less resources and less talent than you are.
Everyone here wants CKD to succeed, but they're not going to blindly follow and cheer on someone when they've seen some of the things that have been displayed by this staff and team for going on two years. Again, this isn't Iowa St where winning 8-9 games/year gets the coach an extension and a raise. It gets you fired at Alabama. Those aren't my rules, it's always been that way and it being that way is what has been part of what keeps up the program's championship standards and expectations. Bama fans are the most passionate in the game, they know good football when they see it and they know bad football when they see it as well. When they start consistently seeing good football, the accolades and support will follow. It's called earning it. Nick Saban had to do the same thing when he first was hired and once he earned the fans respect, he got it in spades. DeBoer is going to have to do the same thing and whoever comes after him will too.
But here's where I disagree. I don't think we should hold last year against CKD. Full stop. Just call it a transitional year. We weren't going to win big with the problems we had, even if CNS, Paul Bryant, Knute Rockne, Vince Lombardi, Bill Walsh, or Don Shula had coached that team.
I'll give it to you that the FSU game was really bad, but even now it appears they are 1000% better than last year and the further we get from that game the less it bothers me when you add that the other two games have been the kind of football we expected. CNS and other coaches have always said you improve the most between game 1 and 2 and we've seen that.
We may lose to Georgia, but I don't think it'll be because we play like we did against FSU.