TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Georgia’s SEC equal is now headed by a South Dakota native whose “southernmost” experience was coordinating offense at Southern Illinois.
Alabama introduced Kalen DeBoer as its new coach Saturday, at last answering the long-time question of who would replace the legendary Nick Saban. Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne and his cohorts needed only 49 hours to find the successor. Byrne and DeBoer hadn’t met before this process. Saban and DeBoer didn’t meet until Friday.
But they’re all aligned now, with DeBoer, 49, trying to maintain and further Alabama’s place atop the college football hierarchy for nearly two decades.
“When it comes to our goals, it’s to win the SEC and a national championship,” DeBoer said. “It’s about winning, but it’s also about culture. … The culture will be contagious, and more and more people, just as its been, will want to continue to be a part of this.”
DeBoer is a splendid coach, assembling one of the more decorated resumes for an outsider joining the SEC since Urban Meyer left Utah for Florida in 2004. He’s 104-12 as a head coach at Sioux Falls (2005-09), Fresno State (2020-21) and Washington (2022-23). And he’s had a meteoric rise in recent years to get here.
When Alabama broke Georgia’s heart in January 2018 – on the infamous Tua-to-DeVonta overtime touchdown that clinched the Crimson Tide’s championship – DeBoer was an offensive coordinator at Fresno State, still a year from accepting the same position with Indiana. In fact, months earlier, the Crimson Tide smashed DeBoer’s Bulldogs 41-10 at Bryant-Denny Stadium. (“It wasn’t one I want to remember; kind of a long day,” DeBoer said Saturday.)
Now, only six seasons after running Fresno State’s offense – and a decade after his promotion from Southern Illinois OC to Eastern Michigan OC – DeBoer has taken over the country’s premier program, replacing the man most consider to be the greatest coach in history. DeBoer is entering the ultimate SEC pressure cooker; as laughable as it sounds, places like Tuscaloosa are the South’s version of professional sports in Philadelphia and New York.
“Over the years, you’d read or (see people) say, ‘Nobody is going to want to replace coach Saban,’” Byrne said. “I don’t blame them. ... But one of the things, as I’ve thought about it over the years, was that you better have somebody who’s comfortable in their own skin who looks at this as a challenge and an opportunity, not as a detriment. Almost immediately, with coach DeBoer and (his wife) Nicole … They saw this as, ‘What a wonderful opportunity.’ … Don’t look at it as a negative, but as an opportunity in a positive way.”
DeBoer was 25-3 at Washington and never lost a home game. He defeated Oregon coach Dan Lanning – who formerly worked under Saban and Georgia coach Kirby Smart – three times. The Huskies’ player development was exceptional. They’ll have quarterback Michael Penix Jr., whom DeBoer also coached at Indiana, and several skill players drafted by NFL teams in April.
Yet DeBoer still often won with less talent than his opponent, including in the College Football Playoff semifinal Jan. 1 when he defeated Steve Sarkisian’s Texas Longhorns, which easily had one of the nation’s best rosters. Georgia and Texas are led by former Saban coordinators who know how vital recruiting is to consistently contend.
Inferior rosters don’t cut it down here. That’s where the primary, maybe even lone, concern with DeBoer lies: He has everything you’d want except a Southern accent (and there are no indications he’ll take the Brian Kelly route and fake one).
Can a South Dakota guy appeal to kids in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and the like? How does he sway these recruits from joining Smart’s machine, which most everyone considers Saban’s Alabama 2.0? DeBoer already has acknowledged that other programs are trying to raid Alabama’s roster through the transfer portal, so he has to handle that element as well.
“I understand there needs to be some SEC ties, some Southeast ties that can help bridge the gap of maybe my experiences here,” DeBoer said. “There are experiences, having been (on the) West Coast (coming) from Indiana and some of the recruiting, but it’s not – I don’t want to lead you on that there’s every coach’s number in my phone right now. I just have to put myself in a spot where the right people are around me.
“And I will say this: I wasn’t a West Coast guy either. I’d never been to the West Coast until a few years ago. Coached at two universities out there. I think there’s an ability to adapt that I feel confident in. I understand what the SEC is all about and how much it means here.”
Byrne’s take on DeBoer’s staffing: “You need somebody who knows what sweet tea and grits are. … We’ll be seeing that as time goes on. He’s had a successful staff that he’s worked with, and I want to be very respectful of that, but the guy is very smart. … I think he’ll make good decisions when it comes to putting a staff together.”
“You have to have staff who speak the language, so to speak. I think it’s an added bonus if you have that, but when you look at the criteria of what you’re looking for (in a head coach), if that’s a non-starter, I think that’s very shortsighted. We just tried to make sure that we talked about it, had good conversation about it, and I felt very pleased with his ideas and thoughts and how to make sure he puts the best staff together to give us the best opportunity to have success across the board in what we do.”
DeBoer made a reasonable point regarding his previous inexperience out west. Saban was a West Virginia native and Kent State product who was coaching at Michigan State when he took the LSU job in 2000. Meyer, a native Ohioan, coached at Bowling Green and Utah before turning the Gators into a behemoth. If DeBoer is that level of coach – Alabama is betting he is – he won’t just figure it out. He’ll thrive.
But Georgia, long in Alabama’s shadow, arguably stands alone as the crème de la crème of the SEC until DeBoer’s Crimson Tide answer the obvious questions. If DeBoer is going to consistently compete with Smart’s operation, which is Alabama’s expectation even without Saban, he’s going to have to recruit the South. And he’s going to have to beat Smart head-to-head.
He’ll get his first chance early. How’s this for an SEC debut: Georgia visits Tuscaloosa on Sept. 28. It will be the first edition of Smart vs. DeBoer. It’ll be fans’ first look at the revamped Georgia-Alabama rivalry. It will provide insight into where the Crimson Tide stand in the infancy of DeBoer’s tenure.
“People ask, ‘Why would you go to Alabama?’” DeBoer said. “Well, I think there’s a lot of really obvious answers. I’ve touched on that when it comes to tradition and the history of the program, it’s second to none. When I look at the places that I want to be, it’s about winning championships. That’s an expectation that I accept as a privilege to try to uphold: Winning SEC championships, winning national championships.”
