ATLANTA (AP) — Four years without a national championship feels like a severe drought for veteran Alabama players.
Similarly, one year of missing the College Football Playoff has second-year coach Kalen DeBoer feeling the pressure to restore the Crimson Tide's status as one of the nation's top teams in 2025.
When asked Wednesday at the Southeastern Conference media days if a 9-4 finish in his 2024 debut season met the Alabama standard, DeBoer said: “I mean, if you internally ask us, no. We fell short of making the playoffs. It’s as simple as that, right? Giving yourself a chance to go compete for a championship.”
DeBoer's task is especially difficult because he's the coach who followed Nick Saban, who led Alabama to its last national championship in 2020. It was Alabama's sixth championship under Saban since 2009.
Junior offensive tackle Kadyn Proctor said Wednesday the Crimson Tide players have endured a painful wait to reach the standard set by Saban.
“For the whole team honestly we obviously know that we haven’t won a championship in a long time,” Proctor said. “And that’s everybody’s goal at the end of the season.”
Included in Alabama's 9-4 season under DeBoer was a 5-3 SEC mark that included road losses at Vanderbilt, Tennessee and Oklahoma. Alabama was No. 17 in the final AP Top 25 following a 19-13 loss to Michigan in the ReliaQuest Bowl in Tampa, Florida.
DeBoer, who coached the 2023 Washington team to the national championship game, says added familiarity and continuity on his staff are reasons to expect improvement.
Defensive lineman Tim Keenan said another reason the Crimson Tide will be better is players believe in DeBoer. Keenan hinted the shadow of Saban followed DeBoer in 2024.
“It’s definitely changed," Keenan said. “You definitely see guys definitely bought in. If they’re not here, no knock to them, but everyone who is here now, they believe in the system. They believe in Coach DeBoer.”
Ryan Grubb, who worked on DeBoer's staff at Washington, was hired as Alabama's offensive coordinator after one season with the Seattle Seahawks.
Keenan said he respects DeBoer for having the confidence to follow Saban.
“I know a lot of people say they want to do that, but they ain’t got the courage enough to do it,” Keenan said. "So I’m gonna go hard for my coach, always.
“Just, you know it’s Coach Saban, like the greatest coach of all time. The GOAT. You know, greatest of all time. So to take that responsibility, saying. ‘I’m going to take over for him now.’ ... I believe in him. And also, I know that God was going to put the right person in the right place at the right time, and he’s in the right place at the right time.”
DeBoer said Alabama “fell short” last season.
“We've got to be better in the big moments,” DeBoer said. "We lost some close games last year. We had chances maybe not even in the fourth quarter, but early in the game to separate ourselves or make a play here or there. Whether it was the belief or whether it was the confidence, a lot of that just comes through repetitions. We really had a great offseason understanding where we fell short, why we fell short. Not just the what and the how but the why.
“I’m excited about our guys taking those next steps, understanding when we get in those moments this year, those critical times, how to come through and make the play that’s necessary to go win football games.”
AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football
FILE - Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer watches during Alabama's A-Day NCAA college football practice and autograph session, Saturday, April 12, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (AP Photo/Vasha Hunt, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.
Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.
Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump's second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.
“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.
About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.
Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.
The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.
Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.
In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump's proposal.
“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives," the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.
Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers' hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.
The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.
Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.
"A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels," said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry's impact of Trump's proposal last year.
There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer's research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.
The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long."
Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.
Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.
Hours before Trump's post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.
Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.
President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Jan. 9, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
FILE - Visa and Mastercard credit cards are shown in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
