Kalen DeBoer was going to lose a game at some point. That was inevitable.
Anything but inevitable was the opponent who dealt DeBoer that unavoidable first loss. It goes without saying that Nick Saban never lost to Vanderbilt. Neither did Mike Shula. Nor Dennis Franchione. Nor Mike DuBose. Nor Gene Stallings. Nor Bill Curry.
A 23-game winning streak spanning four decades was thrown into the Cumberland River along with a FirstBank Stadium goalpost, and just no one could have foreseen DeBoer's first loss coming to Vanderbilt, no one could have predicted the reaction afterward.
For one, some fans complained that DeBoer didn't show enough emotion on the sideline.
"I'm extremely frustrated. We all are. We're not going to lose our cool over that. We all understand what happened.
"I saw extreme frustration," DeBoer said of the post-game locker room. "I saw guys wanting to stick together, wanting to do something special, believing in each other, expressing that. I had my part in there too, where we understood what happened and that it's not up to our standard and how we had to proceed forward."
The Alabama fan base was accustomed over 17 glorious seasons to Saban losing his cool with regularity. It happened so often, and Alabama won so much, that eventually it became endearing.
DeBoer is not Saban. In fact, their temperaments may be the most opposite things about them. Twenty years from now, a yet-to-be invented social media platform will not turn a clip of DeBoer yelling at some player into a meme.
"We're all extremely frustrated, but we're not going to lose our cool. I don't think that's the right way to go about it. There's a time and place for everything," DeBoer said. Speaking of time and place, DeBoer and Saban coach in entirely different eras, even if their tenures were consecutive. As embarrassing and frustrating as the Vanderbilt loss was, for good or ill it was not fatal. Alabama's national championship hunt did not end in Nashville on Saturday evening. "We're still early in the season," DeBoer said. "We left ourselves a little less wiggle room to achieve some of the goals we have, but those goals are still out there."
One Crimson Tide member who showed emotion -- too much, in fact -- was safety Malachi Moore, who threw what can best be described as a temper-tantrum in the closing moments on Saturday's loss. If DeBoer did make the paint peel in Moore's direction, the media did not see it.
"What he did, he has gone above and beyond in taking ownership. This is pretty much immediately after the game to this morning. The thing I want to make sure Bama fans know is that this guy has been rock solid and been a critical, critical piece -- along with others -- of keeping this thing together since January. When a lot of people chose to leave, this guy stood firm. This guy loves Alabama football," DeBoer said.
Another area in which DeBoer has taken criticism no one could have foreseen nor explain before Saturday was, ahem, his choice to wear a T-shirt on the sidelines rather than a traditional collared shirt.
For what it's worth, DeBoer did not wear a collared shirt in any of Alabama's four previous games, opting for the same long-sleeved dri-fit hoodie he wore at Washington. Saturday's game was the first time he donned a t-shirt, but no one complained about his hoodie look before. Of course, the four previous games were all wins.
DeBoer was not asked about his attire choice during Monday's press conference, to which he wore a crimson golf shirt. Still, a quote to another answer was an appropriate response to the chorus of criticism toward DeBoer's demeanor and attire on Saturday.
"When you come up short, you end up amplifying everything."