A New Sheriff in Town: Kalen DeBoer Brings Fresh Perspective to Alabama Football
TUSCALOOSA, Alabama: You will see at least twelve posters-board-sized photos of the coach’s predecessor in the thirty seconds or less it takes to go from Alabama’s football headquarters to coach Kalen DeBoer’s office. Nick Saban is holding a national championship trophy in the most of them.
At lunch on this random early April afternoon, the restaurant’s TV shows “The Paul Finebaum Show.” The host is interviewing Alabama draft prospect Chris Braswell. A bright red graphic beneath him reads “Nick Saban retired after 28 seasons as FBS head coach.”
That afternoon at Alabama’s spring practice, Nick Saban is not in the room, but his memory is still fresh in people’s thoughts.
“I miss him,” one practice observer says to another.
Days after leading Washington in the national championship game against Michigan, DeBoer arrived in January. When Saban held his inaugural news conference on January 13, he and his wife, Terry, were seated in the front row. Since then, the seven-time national champion has mostly avoided the spotlight, spending much of his time at his Jupiter, Florida, home. However, he has also taken some time to work from his new location at Bryant-Denny Stadium, which is just a few blocks away from DeBoer’s.
DeBoer might be following a legend, but the legend is also unwittingly following the coach. And it might be that way for the foreseeable future.
Get
Better
Every
Play.👊#RollTide pic.twitter.com/JEYPirN1C1— Alabama Football (@AlabamaFTBL) March 29, 2024
However, the 49-year-old claims that taking over for the 72-year-old at the vast office that he worked in for 17 years is not as difficult as many might think.
“I guess I look at it as I’m reaping the rewards of the tradition and pride that’s been established here, and it’s an honor I don’t take lightly,” DeBoer said. “And it’s a great challenge, but not in a way where I’m trying to live up to that. What I really want to do is build on it and make it even better.”
Greater even than Saban’s eight SEC crowns and six national championships? Better than his 14 seasons in a row in which he won 11 or more games? Who could imagine that ever being possible?
However, he has before taken control of a juggernaut, albeit one that is being seen by a much larger audience. At thirty years old, DeBoer took over as head coach of Sioux Falls, his alma college, where he was playing NAIA. Before DeBoer was promoted from offensive coordinator to head coach in 2005, the Cougars had a 47-5 record over four seasons. Over the following five years, he would go 67-3, winning three national titles and competing in another.
“It was a national championship or bust mindset,” he said. “It’s a different scale because you’re talking about a whole country that’s following the (Alabama) program compared to the smaller fan base like we had at that level. But if you’re going to compete for a championship, the pressure you put on yourself is going to be greater than what anyone else is going to place on you.
“The thing that drives me — and I’ve said this before to other teams that I’ve coached — is that when our guys come to work every day ready to go and have opened their arms up to myself and this staff the way they have, I don’t want to let them down.”
While it may sound cliché to argue that DeBoer is not Saban, the two are genuinely very different from one another. That much is clear from spending a day in the building, where multiple people repeat similar statements: that since the more composed DeBoer replaced the notoriously tense Saban, their anxiety level has significantly decreased, they no longer live in fear of one of the former coach’s infamous outbursts, and they do not become anxious when they see the coach’s name appear on their phone.
DeBoer, one employee says, “is a normal person.”
In fact, he is so normal that it is simple to overlook him completely when observing the practice field for the Tide. With his ubiquitous straw hat, Saban was nearly constantly on the go, glaring at someone, and one misplaced assignment away from getting in the face of a subpar defensive back.
Wearing a red “A” baseball cap and a gray Alabama hoodie, DeBoer is a reserved observer as he goes between position groups, practice script in hand, observing his assistants conduct exercises. He chats up one of the visiting recruits on this particular day while he observes. He occasionally gives one of his players a fist bump.
“It just shows you that there’s a lot of different ways to do things,” said Jeff Allen, Alabama’s head athletics trainer since Saban’s first year in 2007. “They’re two different people, but they’re both incredibly successful.
“Players respond to authenticity. They know what’s authentic and what’s fake, and there was nothing fake about Nick Saban. And there’s nothing fake about coach DeBoer. I just see that so very, very clearly.”
DeBoer’s laid-back manner does not suggest that the Tide are losing steam. Their players would not have it, to start with. According to Allen, the team leadership demanded that their new coach stick to Nick Saban’s notoriously difficult Fourth Quarter winter fitness program during their first meeting with him in January.
“There’s still a lot of Saban guys on his team,” junior offensive lineman Tyler Booker said. “We still have a standard to uphold, and that starts with us bringing the juice in practice every day. The coaching style may be a little bit different, but we’re still out there banging heads every day. That’s the only way we’re going to get better.”
And the Tide were already pretty good.
Even though it seemed like Alabama was headed for catastrophe early in the previous season, the team broke Georgia’s 29-game winning run, won 12 games again, and won the SEC title before falling in overtime to Michigan, the ultimate national winner, in the College Football Playoff semifinal. Fans became apprehensive quickly after the coaching transition when many significant players, most notably freshman All-America safety Caleb Downs (now at Ohio State), entered the transfer portal. The Tide were always going to lose their share of NFL Draft participants each year.
However, an earlier this month visit to the practice provided as a reminder of just how much talent is still available. The most notable returner to DeBoer’s versatile scheme is quarterback Jalen Milroe, who placed fifth in the Heisman voting the previous season and has room to improve. After some setbacks in the previous season, especially in the Rose Bowl, the offensive line is now viewed as a strength. Additionally, the receiving group—which is led by veterans Kendrick Law and Kobe Prentice—has grown significantly deeper with the acquisition of 6-foot-5, 215-pound rookie Caleb Odom and Washington transfer Germie Bernard.
DeBoer has a handful of scholarships he can use in the spring portal window, but revealingly said, “Most of our offensive production is going to be led by the guys that are here.”
He’s also high on the talent and depth at defensive line and linebacker, led by interior linemen Tim Keenan and Jaheim Oatis and star middle linebacker Deontae Lawson, but acknowledges the secondary, which lost standouts Downs, Terrion Arnold and Kool-Aid McKinstry, is depleted. Malachi Moore is a veteran staple, and Michigan transfer safety Keon Sabb has been a nice addition, but, “with the number of bodies in the secondary, we have to look at bringing a guy or two in.”
College football fans will get their first glimpse of the DeBoer era at Alabama when ESPN televises the Tide’s annual A-Day Game on Saturday. Asked what viewers should expect, Booker said bluntly: “Alabama football.”
“The standard hasn’t changed,” he said. “The play calling might be a little different. The scheme may be a little different. But we still have that Script A on our chest. That Script A is still on the 50-yard line. So, Alabama football will be played on April 13.”
(Photo: Gary Cosby Jr. / Tuscaloosa News / USA Today)