In choosing Washington’s Kalen DeBoer to replace the greatest college football coach of all time, Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne has opted for safe and logical over high risk/high reward.
67-3 at NAIA-level Sioux Falls.
9-3 in his only non-COVID season at Fresno State.
25-3 at Washington.
But DeBoer isn’t Saban. And for all the reasons he makes sense in this job, there’s one that makes this hire as terrifying as it is exciting.
Recruiting.
Can he do it? Does he even like it?
Let me offer some advice to Coach DeBoer: You better learn the lay of the land in the Southeastern Conference — and fast. Because at the place you now work, it’s going to take a lot more than your playbook to survive.
The secret of Saban’s success at Alabama wasn’t really a secret. As told in Monte Burke’s book “Saban: The Making of a Coach,” Saban once asked then-athletics director Mal Moore if he thought Alabama had just hired the best coach in college football. When Moore responded that he did, Saban famously shot back: “Well, you didn’t — I’m nothing without my players. But you did just hire a helluva recruiter.’
Is DeBoer a “helluva recruiter?” We don’t know. He’s never had a job in Div. I football long enough for anyone to be able to tell. Even at Washington, the players who mattered were mostly there already when he got the job in 2022. Even Michael Penix, the excellent quarterback who made it all go, transferred there because of a prior relationship with DeBoer.
To put it mildly, he’s never done the kind of recruiting it takes to navigate the shark-infested waters of the South. The closest place to SEC territory DeBoer has ever worked is Southern Illinois. Does he even know you aren’t supposed to put sugar in your grits?
This isn’t merely going to be culture shock for DeBoer; it’s going to be a jolt the size of Tuscaloosa’s electrical grid. Can he handle it?
You don’t need to be an SEC guy to win in the SEC. Byrne made that bet once before when he plucked Nate Oats out of Buffalo to be his basketball coach. Oats, a former Michigan high school coach, had never worked anywhere close to the South. He’s done pretty well for himself with a couple of SEC championships and trips to the Sweet 16.
But even that example doesn’t quite capture the magnitude of what DeBoer is walking into. If you want to win national championships, you have to regularly beat Georgia and LSU for players, not to mention Auburn, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Florida, Texas A&M and the rest.
The easy response to that is, “OK, but it’s Alabama. They’ll get players.” Maybe that’s true.
But Saban recruiting to Alabama was a different animal. His track record was about getting guys to the NFL. His aura was unmatched. Without him, Alabama looks a lot more like everybody else it’s competing against for those recruits — and that’s not going to be easy in the name, image and likeness era.
To that end, DeBoer and Alabama’s administration are going to have a lot of work to do. In talking to a few people since Saban announced his retirement, it became clear that Alabama’s NIL program was not set up to just go out and buy a bunch of players.
Saban adjusted and adapted to the NIL era, but only to a degree. His NIL philosophy was built more around ensuring all of his players had a relatively equal baseline and anything else above that number was secured individually. Players accepted that “Saban discount” because they wanted to go to Alabama and play for him.
That will not happen under DeBoer, and Alabama will have a lot of work to do getting its NIL program on equal footing with its competition and convincing donors that things are going to be different under a new coach. You’re not going to be able to pick and choose who you want to come to Alabama because the lure of the coach is unmatched. Recruits and transfers will need to be convinced, and the competition has never been this strong.
It’s going to be a very different world — especially for a guy who was a relatively anonymous offensive coordinator at Indiana a mere four years ago.
Becoming the coach at Alabama and the guy who followed Nick Saban is not just a change of jobs, it’s a new life. He will never walk out of his house without people knowing who he is. Everything he does on and off the field, practically every minute of his day, will be scrutinized to a degree that will surely make him uncomfortable. And if he loses some games, it will be a miserable existence — Alabama’s fan base will make sure of that.
But it’s the job DeBoer wanted. Hopefully he knows what he’s getting into.
The same can be said of Alabama. To fulfill the expectations that will now be placed on DeBoer, you have to be an excellent coach and recruiter. We know he can do the first part. The second will be a mystery for everyone.