"Incredible explosive offense" - Joel Klatt claims Kalen DeBoer's Alabama resembles Lincoln Riley's Oklahoma Sooners

Joel Klatt on Monday gave his take on the Alabama team following its unexpected loss to Vanderbilt on Saturday. The Commodores, led by Diego Pavia, staged one of the greatest upsets in the history of college football to defeat the Crimson Tide 40-35 in Nashville.

Considering the way the team played against Vanderbilt and the performance in the previous four games, Joel Klatt compared Alabama to Oklahoma during the era of Lincoln Riley. The current USC coach built a program with an explosive offense that struggled defensively in Norman.

The Crimson Tide have showcased their brilliant offense this season, which was expected after Kalen DeBoer replaced Nick Saban. However, the team's high-scoring performances in the previous game have seemingly shielded the problem that lies in the defense.

“This Bama team is just another version of the Lincoln Riley OU teams,” Klatt said on ‘The Next Round(via On3)’ “Incredible explosive offense, and they’re gonna be in shootouts the rest of the way. I told you that after the South Florida game and that’s what they are.”

“We’ve had four straight games of this. To think, all of a sudden, it’s going to get better — Alabama, right now, is just a Big 12 team from 2017. Bama is gonna have to score 45 PPG in conference to win the rest of their games.”

A big concern for Alabama on the defense

While Alabama for years boasted one of the strongest defenses in college football under Nick Saban, the story has seemingly changed in a new era.

The team's defensive weakness was made evident by Georgia, who almost sealed a comeback win in a 41-34 defeat in Week 5. Vanderbilt took advantage of the struggles to stage a historic upset. Joel Klatt provided a breakdown of the Crimson Tide's defensive problem.

“There’s a problem,” Klatt said. “Structurally, there’s a problem. So they’re kind of stuck between trying to play an even front and an odd front at times. And I don’t think that you can be good at both. Now, you can have the ability to get into both, but it’s hard to be good at both."

Nick Saban also pointed out how Georgia was able to expose Alabama’s secondary on Saturday during his appearance on College GameDay. These are problems defensive coordinator Kane Wommack will be expected to fix for the Crimson Tide to flourish.