A.J. McCarron takes swipe at Alabama, says players too ‘worried about f*cking TikTok’

This isn’t Nick Saban’s Alabama.

Replacing a legend was never going to be easy, but the wheels—at least in the eyes of fans, sports media pundits, and former players—are already starting to fall off. While the Crimson Tide haven’t exactly been eliminated from College Football Playoff contention with losses to Vanderbilt and Tennessee, two losses on Kaleb DeBoer’s ledger this early on doesn’t reflect well on his public perception.

Nor does it reflect well on the public perception of the program, as former players are now taking potshots at the university that turned them into household names. Damien Harris recently called out Malachi Moore for his behavior. Now, A.J. McCarron is lamenting a “different era” of Alabama football because players are too worried about social media.

According to On3, McCarron has observed some “different” elements within the program, stating during an appearance on the McCready and Siskey podcast that “it’s not the same.”

Of course, Katherine Webb, Brent Musburger, and the 2013 BCS National Championship game aren’t walking through that door. That was a decade ago. It was a different era of college football and a different landscape.

“I think, for sure, the standard that everybody was used to for so long after Alabama fans went through a bunch of hell leading up to those glorious years, I think it’s definitely a different era,” McCarron said. “I don’t think you’ll see the same standard from discipline, just things that the team seems to do. It’s a new day and age.

“Everybody’s worried about f*cking TikTok and having a reel and being on highlights for their personal self and personal gain, and how much money they can get from NIL. We just didn’t have that sh*t back then. It was a team sport. You came together as a team because you had one common goal because you knew that’s how you were going to make your money, was by winning.”

“Winning attracts people to that program, it attracts scouts, it attracts GMs, it attracts ownership to allow yourself that opportunity to make a lot of money and change your family tree for a long time,” he continued. “You can just tell. It’s not the same.

“I would think Bama fans should get used to that in the way of, hey, it’s not gonna be what you knew from 2008 up until last year, where there was just a certain standard. That’s not a knock on the coaching staff or a knock on anybody. It’s just a different era. I think it’s something that they’re going to have to buckle up if they’re not ready for it.”

A few things can be true here. McCarron probably won’t be invited by DeBoer to address the team anytime soon. And the standard would always change post-Saban unless Crimson Tide officials convinced Kirby Smart, Steve Sarkisian, Lane Kiffin, or Dan Lanning to take the Alabama job. And even then, none of them are Saban.

It’s certainly a different era for Alabama, and we’ve already seen a litany of overreactions from a fanbase that hasn’t seen two losses before Halloween in a long, long time. Maybe the standards and discipline that McCarron alluded to are no longer there, but we know the ability to win remains.

DeBoer has won everywhere he’s gone, and the Washington Huskies, who made the National Championship in 2023, dealt with TikTok, reels, highlights, and all that other sh*t. Plenty of other programs are succeeding with all of those things as well.

[On3]