THIS WEEK IN SCHADENFREUDE, Bama fans mull if Dabo is good enough to follow Saban

Welcome to a special National Championship edition of THIS WEEK IN SCHADENFREUDE, your sometimes-weekly race car ride around the saddest tracks of the college football internet.

Today, we visit with Alabama fans, who previously appeared on these pages because they were mad about a 24-0 win over a ranked team. Let’s see how Tide fans online responded after their team actually lost a game for the first time in more than a calendar year — more specifically, got boat-raced by Clemson in the biggest game of the year.

A big postgame discussion topic: Has Dabo Swinney finally earned a chance to be considered for Bama’s head coaching job once Nick Saban retires?

“Did Dabo Secure Post Saban Bama Coaching Job if he wants it?” a message board thread at SECRant.com asked. At this point, you have to at least ask the question.

Yes, but there is one condition, per this person:

if he brings his DC with him, lets get the ball rolling.

Congratulations to the Bama alum, who might have finally proven himself a worthy successor to Saban, but only with Brent Venables in tow. Maybe beat Saban in two or three more title games, and then let’s talk.

Dabo still has work to do to get everyone on board, however. From 247Sports’ board:

I’ll say it. I don’t want him at Alabama. Ever.

Post 1965bamaboy is explicit about it:

#NeverDabo
Here and accounted for

That’s a real Twitter hashtag These are all from apparent Bama fans:

Why wouldn’t a Bama fan want Dabo? Well, it’s clear:

Any coach that defends players who cheat I dont want anywhere near my team. If you think for 1 second that only 3 players on that team took PEDs you are a freakin moron. 3 players popped for the same illegal PED there is more than 3 those 3 just got caught. 3 players who didnt hang out together didnt know each other that well those are all words from Dabos mouth and they all tested positive for PEDs the same chemical.

(Clemson was without arguably its best defender due to a drug test suspension and still beat Alabama by 28 points.)

What if it’s just not right?

I can’t ultimately decide regarding Dabo succeeding Saban. I like the fact Dabo is a ‘Bama guy and a great recruiter but there’s something about him I’m just not comfortable with. I do admit, that we could do worse from a recruiting and maybe even X’s & O’s standpoint but I’m not comfortable with him.

Another poster puts Dabo’s potential decision in these terms:

Let’s see...

1) Stay at Clemson, where you built the brand that it is today, have won 2 NC’s in 3 years. Have permanent job security barring a complete collapse or moral failure.

2) Come to Alabama to follow one of the greatest coaches in CFB history, immense and at times unreasonable expectations, constant shadow of not 1 but 2 legendary coaches. Anything less than 10 win seasons and you’re gone.

If I’m Dabo, give me Door No. 2.

This just about sums it up, from a commenter at SB Nation’s Roll Bama Roll:

#neverdabo

And yes they kicked our ass.

Hell yeah.

As a side option, maybe don’t go after Dabo, but do go after his D coordinator, Brent Venables, who’s annually one of the most sought head coaching candidates around but hasn’t gone anywhere, in part because he has a son on Clemson’s roster and in part because the Tigers have already made him the second-highest-paid D coordinator in history:

Venebles

Lupoi ain’t cutting it ... we need to offer Brent 3 million a year to come to Bama.

The #FireSaban hashtag got moving during and after the game. I don’t feel like trying to figure out what’s sarcastic and what’s not, but I’m going to put five tweets here, and the odds tell me at least one of them’s real.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Others on the Bama internet were just stuck in a pit of sadness.

This seems both obviously true and yet ridiculous to even say:

I love Saban and Bama but this is worse than 2007 LaMo loss

We had the better players, supposedly the better coaches and we still got our arse beat by 30.

Pure arrogance by the coaching staff to not take what they were giving us. Even take away Tuas two gifts and we still lose by 14.

FOUR trips inside the 20 with jack shite to show for it. We get inside the 20 and abandon the run.

The defense quit but this loss is solely on the coaching staff. A very poorly prepared team.

“LaMo” refers to ULM, one of Saban’s clear worst losses ever.

Here’s a really weird thing to be mad at your QB about:

Tua is being a sore loser

Not giving any cred to Clemson’s defense.

I’m a little disappointed.

What kind of epic shot did Bama’s QB take at Clemson? It appears to be a line from his postseason press conference, when, after being asked what Clemson did to confuse him on his two interceptions, Tagovailoa only said: “I don’t think it was anything that they were doing that stopped us. That was totally a bad decision. It was a poor decision on my part.”

Enormously disrespectful.

This comment is just brutal:

Embarrassing on all fronts. Bet Tua’s relatives wish they stayed home.

We’re a long way from hoping Tua can overcome the Hawaii-to-Alabama language barrier, folks.

Of course, some sought to assign blame in different directions. Two obvious targets: an alleged gambling conspiracy and Drake.

This poster at Bama’s 247Sports message board has the scoop

Just heard from a source there was a ton of money on this game.

2 of our coaches and some refs are being linked to an “agreement”.

Wait for the fallout.

And this Redditor knows exactly where to turn:

Some of the blame goes to this bandwagoning fucker

Another Bama fan wrote:

I hate drake and his degrsssei ass. If I want to listen to rap I want to listen to real rap. Not Canadian rap music.

(Note that Clemson fans quickly got Drake out of the paint after the program’s official Twitter account briefly offered him a spot on the Tigers bandwagon.)

Still, many Tide fans jumped straight to the reconciling phase.

A commenter at Roll Bama Roll found the good in the historic loss.

Silver lining

I closed on my house today, annnnnd

Just freed up a lot of space on the DVR!

(I can relate.)

What if this was a good thing in general?

People won’t like this, but...

People won’t like this, but this is exactly what Bama needed. From the coaches, to the players, all the way to the fans. Bama needed to be humbled. Clemson is just plain better and it showed tonight. Got to go back to work in the off-season and get back to the basics.

Had Bama won, Saban probably would’ve stopped trying.

And this is so deep, you should have to pass a swimming test to read it:

Lose this one with dignity

It happens. Everything in the world that could happen has happened.

Profound as hell. Roll Tide. We’ll see you next season.