TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — In the roughly 30 seconds it takes to walk from the entrance to Alabama’s football headquarters to the office occupied by coach Kalen DeBoer, you will pass at least a dozen poster-board-sized pictures of the coach’s predecessor. In most of them, Nick Saban is hoisting a national championship trophy.
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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.”
Saban is not physically present at Alabama’s spring practice that afternoon, but the man is still on people’s minds.
“I miss him,” one practice observer says to another.
DeBoer arrived in January, just days after leading Washington in the national championship game against Michigan. Saban and his wife, Terry, sat in the front row at his Jan. 13 introductory news conference. The seven-time national champ has largely stayed away since, spending most of his time at his home in Jupiter, Fla. But he’s also spent some time in his new office at Bryant-Denny Stadium — only a couple of blocks 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
But sitting in the same cavernous office the 72-year-old occupied for 17 years, the 49-year-old insists replacing Saban is not the daunting burden most would assume it to be.
“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.”
Even better than Saban’s six national titles and eight SEC championships? Even better than his 14 straight seasons with 11 or more wins? Who could even fathom that possibility?
But in fact, this is not his first experience taking over the reins of a juggernaut — albeit this one is being witnessed by a lot more people. At age 30, DeBoer became the head coach at his alma mater, Sioux Falls, then competing in NAIA. The Cougars had gone 47-5 over four seasons before DeBoer was promoted from offensive coordinator to head coach in 2005. He would go 67-3 over the next five years, winning three national championships and playing for another.
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“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.”
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It may sound cliche to say DeBoer is not Saban, but truly, they couldn’t be more different. That much is obvious from spending a day inside the building, where several people say some version of the same thing: that their anxiety level is way down since the more mild-mannered DeBoer took over for the notoriously tightly wound Saban, that they no longer live in fear of one of the former coach’s famed outbursts or that they don’t panic when they see the coach’s name pop up on their phone.
DeBoer, one employee says, “is a normal person.”
So normal, in fact, that it’s easy to miss him entirely while looking out on the Tide’s practice field. Saban, with his ubiquitous straw hat, was almost always in motion, almost always glaring at someone and always one blown assignment from getting up in some poor defensive back’s face.
DeBoer, in his gray Alabama hoodie and red “A” baseball cap, is a quiet observer as he moves between position groups, practice script in hand, watching his assistants run drills. On this day, he chats up one of several visiting recruits while he watches. Occasionally he fist-bumps one of his players.
“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.
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“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 relaxed demeanor does not indicate the Tide are taking the spring off. For one thing, their players wouldn’t have it. Allen said when team leadership first met with their new coach in January they insisted he maintain Saban’s infamously challenging Fourth Quarter winter conditioning program.
“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.
Though it felt like Alabama was heading toward disaster early last season, it instead won 12 games yet again and ended Georgia’s 29-game winning streak to capture the SEC championship before losing in overtime to eventual national champion Michigan in the College Football Playoff semifinal. The Tide were always going to lose their annual share of NFL Draft entrants, but fans grew concerned shortly after the coaching change when several key players — most notably freshman All-America safety Caleb Downs (now at Ohio State) — entered the transfer portal.
But a visit to practice earlier this month served as a reminder of just how much talent remains on hand. Most notably, quarterback Jalen Milroe, who finished fifth in the Heisman voting last season, is back, with room to grow in DeBoer’s multifaceted offense. The offensive line, which struggled at times last season (particularly in the Rose Bowl), is now considered a strength. And the receivers, led by veterans Kendrick Law and Kobe Prentice, have gotten notably deeper with the additions of Washington transfer Germie Bernard and massive 6-foot-5, 215-pound freshman Caleb Odom.
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.”
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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)
