But if the basic expectation was to secure a seat in the first 12-team playoffs, it wasn’t enough. It’s close, but if it was strictly a matter of pass or fail, they failed.

On the field, it was a season played on the craziest spectrum of success imaginable. From a crazy win over preseason No. 1 Georgia one week to a stunning loss at Vanderbilt the next. After recovering from a three-week slump, a shutout of ranked Missouri was followed by a convincing 42-13 annihilation of an 8th-ranked LSU team.

From that to a busted diaper in Oklahoma.

A 24-3 embarrassment against a 1-5 team in SEC play was almost assuredly the difference between the Crimson Tide playing in a first-round playoff game and traveling to Tampa for a bowl sponsored by a cybersecurity technology company.

DeBoer beat Auburn.

He lost to Tennessee.

This was a team that, at times, played against those at the peak of the Nick Saban era. In other cases they were of the Shula type.

They both teased the potential but left room for the bar to be raised.

DeBoer was good, not great.

He didn’t fall flat but he wasn’t Tubby Smith either.

You may recall that emerging basketball coaching talent took over the Kentucky program in 1997 after Rick Pitino went to the Boston Celtics. He inherited a team fresh off an overtime loss in the NCAA title game and, a year later, brought down the nets as a freshman national champion.

It was a bar he could never reach again despite being told Pitino’s players were the only reason he got that ring. Over the course of 10 seasons, he averaged 26-8, but was eventually run out of town.

Now, DeBoer did not enjoy the same roster retention advantage given the relaxation of transfer rules. And that’s where some of the other assessments come into play.

Recruiting meant both retaining the current roster and signing class with a limited pool of incoming transfers given the timing of the Saban for DeBoer trade. And while there were some notable defections, DeBoer applied a tourniquet pretty quickly to keep the program from bleeding out.

He had five-star Ryan Williams re-sign and save the 2024 signing class, then signed the class ranked No. 2 in the 2025 cycle, according to the 247Sports composite.

Closer to good than good.

There is room to grow in terms of the state, however. Auburn recruited eight of Alabama’s top 10 players while Hugh Freeze built its momentum and enthusiasm, at least off the field.

Inside the football complex, the atmosphere is more relaxed due to the quasi-militaristic atmosphere under Saban. The tone is set at the top since DeBoer is a down-to-earth, accessible man who is not easily shaken. There were no outbursts at the press conference and no visible anger over the surprising losses.

While there remains an appetite for an occasional panic on the podium, that’s not who DeBoer is.

He wasn’t hired to be a Saban clone because he’s not.

With a little time and perspective, this mission turned out to be more difficult than it might have initially seemed. DeBoer had to build a team after the traditional coaching move window, then saw his longtime offensive coordinator (Ryan Grubb) and offensive line coach (Scott Huff) quickly leave for NFL jobs. Scrambling to replace them among all the other moves was not trivial.

So it’s about moving forward.

DeBoer can now structure his team the way he would like if there were any issues with the first draft while still hitting the portal at full speed. Recall that he built a program from the ashes to the CFP finals in Washington, not only with high school players, but with aggressive transfer recruiting.

Ultimately, the first year was about keeping the ship straight and then pointing the bow toward the horizon.

It was unrealistic to expect a smooth transition. At the same time, missing the playoffs due to two losses to unranked teams (including Vanderbilt) is a reasonable complaint.

What would be considered good in first year?

That.

But DeBoer came here for good.

This is how it will be defined in year 2.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ParCasagrande or on Facebook.