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Why Kalen DeBoer Is The Right Fit At Alabama
Hey friends,
It’s never easy succeeding a legend in any professional — especially as a college football coach.
After 17 seasons and six national championship victories at Alabama, legendary head coach Nick Saban decided to call it a career following his squad’s Rose Bowl loss in January.
In his place, the Crimson Tide hired Washington head coach Kalen DeBoer as Saban’s replacement.
DeBoer is as worthy as an heir-apparent as there is — he’s compiled a 104-12 head coaching record at three stops, including three national championships at the NAIA level, a Pac-12 championship, and a College Football Playoff bid.
My latest stop on my Next Up tour took me to DeBoer’s new office with the Crimson Tide.
Let’s dive into how he plans on replacing a bonafide coaching legend, retooling the program’s core values, and continuing his track record of elite prospect development at Alabama:
Replacing A Living Legend
On January 10, Alabama head coach and seven-time national champion Nick Saban decided to hang up his headset after an illustrious 17-year stint with the Crimson Tide.
Saban compiled a 206-29 record with Alabama, winning just under 88% of all matchups coached.
Since 2009, Saban coached his units to six national titles and sent 133 players to the NFL ranks, highlighted by 47 first-round selections.
DeBoer’s meteoric rise in the coaching ranks after leading Washington to its first national championship bid since 1991 immediately put him on a shortlist as Saban’s predecessor.
When Oregon’s Dan Lanning and Texas’s Steve Sarkisian bowed out of the running, athletic director Greg Byrne finally had his guy, who’s more widely respected than nearly every coach at the Power Four level.
While DeBoer immediately commanded the attention of his new locker room, he knew that replacing a figure as mountainous as Saban wouldn’t be a seamless transition.
“That first meeting, I just tried to connect with [the players] a little bit,” DeBoer told me. “I told them that I understood what this place stood for, what their goals were each and every year, but also just how they want to do things… There’s a challenge of just building and adding to [what Saban did].”
For most of DeBoer’s career, the 49-year-old head coach led Sioux Falls at the NCAA II level, compiling a stellar 67-3 clip and three national championships.
From there, the South Dakota native moved on to mentor the offense at Indiana before earning his first FBS head coaching gig at Fresno State.
Both vertical moves were made since 2019, right before he took over Washington’s prestigious program in 2022.
Suddenly, DeBoer’s ready to lead arguably college football’s most storied program five years removed from his first Power Four coordinator job.
While he hasn’t had a concrete period to reflect on his ascension, he trusts his process to keep him grounded in Tuscaloosa while reminding himself of the work it took to climb the coaching ladder.
“[The transition] was on the go,” DeBoer said with a smile. “From press conferences to just a lot of meetings, and one-on-one meetings… I think every minute at that time of the year was really important with what these guys were going through.”
To him, the process of maintaining Alabama’s standard will always be more important than his personal journey as an esteemed locker room leader.
Maintaining Core Values
Nobody in college football ran a tighter ship than Saban did across almost two decades with the Crimson Tide.
Similarly, very few young coaches preach core values and common beliefs like DeBoer.
Over Saban’s final pair of campaigns leading Alabama, he won 23 battles compared to just four losses and made one College Football Playoff appearance.
Statistically speaking, Saban won 85% of his matchups to end his storied run in Tuscaloosa.
Since 2022, Saban’s winning percentage trails only Jim Harbaugh, Kirby Smart, and his new successor, DeBoer.
At Washington, DeBoer went 25-3, marked by two bowl victories, a Pac-12 Championship, and a College Football Playoff appearance capped off by a spot in the national title game.
From the outside, it seemed as though DeBoer molded the Huskies into elite status overnight. However, with his unique culture-building tactics, that was hardly the case.
“We want to be first class in everything we do,” DeBoer said. “We want to be men of integrity, [and] we want to have academic excellence in the classroom… What we call our ‘non-negotiables’ kind of falls in with the values that we have.”
Through DeBoer’s “non-negotiables,” he wants to form a brotherhood that extends far beyond the hashes.
Although 14 Crimson Tide commodities entered the transfer portal following Saban’s exit, DeBoer built a retooled brotherhood by recruiting prospects who wanted to continue Alabama’s legacy of sustained excellence.
Despite touching the ground in Tuscaloosa in early January, after the first signing period, DeBoer was able to ink 28 high school enrollees — good for the second-best class nationally.
Additionally, DeBoer pulled in 15 transfers from highly-touted Power Four groups, including Penn State, Michigan, Texas A&M, USC, and Washington.
“We want to be family-centered, we want to have a brotherhood, which has just been really great, even coming in,” DeBoer continued. “… There needs to be an accountability, [which] I think every great team has. You figure out what’s important to you, how you do things, and these guys have really stuck to their guns on that.”
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Continuing Elite Personnel Development
Last year, DeBoer took the No. 26-most talented roster in college football and turned his unit into a championship-level group.
Washington’s blue-chip ratio in 2023 was abnormally low for a College Football Playoff-caliber team.
The Huskies’ 12-1 regular season resulted from the efforts of 49 three-star recruits, compared to just 27 four-star prospects, and zero former five-star commodities.
DeBoer’s most valuable player, quarterback Michael Penix Jr., finished second in Heisman Trophy voting, behind a 4,903-yard passing season coupled with 36 touchdowns through the air.
His newest quarterback prospect, Jalen Milroe, finished sixth in the Heisman pecking order last year as a dual-threat spread orchestrator for Saban.
While both Penix and Milroe differ physically and deliver separate strengths, DeBoer mentioned that their mentalities, spurred by his “non-negotiables,” separate them from other locker room pieces.
“Both of them [Penix and Milroe] are extremely great people,” DeBoer told me. “They want to achieve success at the highest level individually, but when you really get to know them, man, they want what’s best for their teammates and this football team.”
This year, Milroe will look to expand on a third-year campaign where he completed 66% of his passes for 2,800 yards and 10 yards per completion.
Moreover, Milroe put together 531 rushing yards as a backfield mainstay, and he delivered 12 touchdowns for the Crimson Tide with his legs.
His never-quit mentality reminds DeBoer of Penix, and he believes that his newest gunslinger will continue to pour that aspect of his game into skill position players.
“[That mentality] isn’t just something they’re saying publicly, they’re living it and pouring into that each and every day,” DeBoer said. “They’re the ones that are holding themselves accountable, and then passing that onto the rest of their team.”
If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me by email atadam@brenemanmedia.com.
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Shoutout toConnor Krausefor helping to write this newsletter and putting it together!
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