Kalen DeBoer Is Unreal vs. Top-25 Teams On The Road — But Ryan Day Isn’t Far Behind

To paraphrase one sage intellectual of our time, Tiffany Gomas, a woman pushed beyond the brink of this reality, beyond the fabric of this mortal world, before declaring what was so clear to her before a captivated airplane audience: THAT (redacted) IS NOT REAL.

Neither is Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer — not against AP top-25 teams on the road. He is not real.

In fact, DeBoer is so unreal that he invites abject skepticism from otherwise ball-knowing folks, forcing them to question what they’re seeing with their own eyes, similar to Ms. Gomas’ viral outburst three years ago.

But as we understand, at this moment in time, when clocks still turn right, the sun continues to rise in the east and intelligent lifeforms beyond our blueberry-colored planet have yet to be discovered (or made themselves known), we must contend with the rather sobering Disclosure Day-level facts: 

DeBoer is 4-1 against top-25 programs in true road games as Alabama’s head coach.
DeBoer is 9-2 all-time on the road against top-25 programs, like Mississippi State, which his Crimson Tide face on Saturday.

Among active FBS head coaches, he is the absolute best at winning in hostile environments against teams most of us believe are good (ranked!). And it’s not actually that close. 

DeBoer included, there are only four head coaches with winning percentages higher than .500 in road games against top-25 opponents (with a minimum of five games).

Ohio State coach Ryan Day ranks second with a 7-4 record against top-25 teams in true road games, Georgia coach Kirby Smart ranks third (8-6) and Oregon coach Dan Lanning ranks fourth (3-2). Notably, Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman owns a 4-4 record in top-25 true road games.

But you, a ball-knower, have intuitively figured out that among those coaches, all five have reached the College Football Playoff, and all five have reached the CFP semifinals. Four have had their teams advance to the national championship game (DeBoer, Day, Smart, Freeman), and two have won it all (Day, Smart).

Success against ranked teams with tremendous home-field advantage isn’t the kind of stat that gets to hide, either. 

Like a good edition of the Resident Evil franchise, that stat is captivatingly hideous upon viewing. In fact, being terrible in this category is one of the major reasons Penn State canned James Franklin, whose Nittany Lions were 2-13 against AP top-25 opponents on the road and 0-10 at top-10 ones.

DeBoer’s Alabama is my pick against Mississippi State on Saturday in Starkville.

This is not just because he’s found a way to get the best out of his teams against some of the sport’s most competitive programs and away from the friendly confines of Bryant-Denny Stadium. It’s also because — not unlike the Bulldogs with dynamo quarterback Kamario Taylor — Crimson Tide quarterback Keelon Russell can probably match just about anyone. Both quarterbacks are completing at least 69% of their passes, both have thrown just two interceptions apiece and both are throwing for at least 282 yards per game.

The only way I could feel even better about my pick is if DeBoer wears his long-sleeved, black hoodie, in which he has an impressively high win percentage when wearing what Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz once called “the Black hoodie of death.”

See? This is how we all become Tiffany Gomas: Superstition becomes supposition, and supposition gets willed into fact because we cannot do without a narrative fallacy to, as we Millennials say, Make it [clap] make [clap] sense [clap]. 

Some things are just not real, and Kalen DeBoer’s demolition of ranked opponents in their own backyards isn’t real — even if it is.