A new chapter has begun for fans of college football at the University of Alabama. Coach Kalen DeBoer is taking over for Nick Saban, who’s retiring after seventeen seasons in Tuscaloosa. The Crimson Tide’s new coach is already hiring personnel after his first public appearance over the weekend. Here’s more on the expectations Coach DeBoer is facing after just a few days on the job.
“So, I was on a walk around campus and I had my phone in my pocket and all of a sudden it starts blowing up,” said Conley Edwards, a sophomore at the University of Alabama
“I can just feel it buzzing one after another and I pull my phone out. And one of my friends from home had texted me Nick Saban retired and I just froze,” she added.
Edwards is from Little Rock. She’s sporting a sweatshirt for the Arkansas Razorbacks, but she still says she’s a fan of the Crimson Tide.
“I immediately pulled out my phone, Googled Nick Saban and just like stood there for a minute and was like…There's no way this is real, like someone say April Fool's,” said Edwards.
“I was with a friend,” said Maggie Gilliam.
““I'd gotten a text from a different friend saying like, my brother's kind of making this joke that Nick Saban is retiring,” said Gilliam, who’s a sophomore at UA. She’s from Austin, Texas. She got that same kind of buzz in her pocket
“And I was like, This is what do you mean? Like of course he's not retiring.” Gilliam recalled. “Like, he didn't win the natty like, that was my like expectations like, Oh, if he won, he could retire but not like after like that loss of Michigan.”
The University of Alabama responded to Nick Saban’s departure within forty nine hours.
“This is an exciting day for the University of Alabama, as we welcome Kalen DeBoer as our twenty eighth head football coach, Kalen DeBoer,” said UA Athletic Director Greg Byrne. He took the stage inside Bryant Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa. His audience included University leadership and more than a few reporters…
“We're thrilled to welcome Kalen, his wife, Nicole, his daughters, Alexis and Avery here today as we introduce the next head football coach of the University of Alabama Kalen DeBoer,” Byrne said.
“Filling his shoes. I mean, it's it is impossible. And I say that humbly,” said DeBoer, who’s leaving the Washington Huskies for the Crimson Tide. And the shoes he’s referring to belong to Nick Saban’s who’s retiring after seventeen seasons and six national championships. To hear DeBoer talk about, you might get the impress he knows what’s coming.
“I think there's, there's a piece where you have to have a confidence in yourself,” DeBoer contended. “Because it will be there will be things that are second guessed, when there's so much continuity that's happened for so many years, at such a high level.”
That second guessing began way before DeBoer walked up to the mike
“I think those first three games are going to be pretty critical for him,” said Maggie Gilliam. She’s the UA sophomore from Austin, Texas you met earlier.
“Probably three games,” she said. “I'll give him like if he can keep the consistent win off of the first three games. I think he'll be fine.”
And if you think that’s tough…
“I'll give him through like, honestly, I feel like everyone's gonna be super duper critical that first game,” said Conley Edwards, the UA sophomore from Little Rock.
“I think there will be definitely a lot going around the first game and then I give him through the first half of the season. See where our record is then on if people are like, okay, yeah, after two years, he can go well, let's start looking for someone new or, oh, yeah, this is our new franchise coach,” she proposed.
My next stop was Coach DeBoer’s first press conference at Alabama…
“Hello, Coach Pat Duggins, Alabama Public Radio and NPR. Welcome to Tuscaloosa. Everybody in the room here knows that it took Coach Saban a couple of seasons to come up to speed before he started, you know, winning championships and such. I've spoken to students and these are young people mind you, who say they're gonna give you three games. Can you talk about that pressure and dealing with it?”
“I got three. Okay, I was making sure I had that many,” said DeBoer with a laugh. “But yeah, I mean, here's the thing. I'm going to ask our guys to bring their best energy, attitude and effort, I'm going to ask my staff to bring their best energy, attitude and effort I'm going to ask myself, and I hope that's what they asked me and that's all they're asking me. We bring best energy, attitude and effort. We got to work, we got to be smart. We got to have very skilled people, whether it's players, whether it's staff, we gotta have people that are relentless.”
Despite the pressure and expectations, UA sophomores Maggie Gilliam and Conley Edwards sound reasonably optimistic about how Kalen DeBoer will do as Alabama’s new head coach. Edwards says the new twelve team playoff system could give the Tide a break..
“It definitely gives them a better chance to get into the playoffs in the championship next year. I think the four game playoff is a little weird just with how many NCAA teams there are that compete but I'm excited to see once you do have you know more opportunities for those like underdog wins, how the playoffs are gonna go and I think that could help the board next season.”
We gave Maggie Gilliam the last word on Coach DeBoer.
“He did well last season. So like to me and he came in and he liked competed against Michigan,” she said. “So I feel like he'd be a fair coach to have like, he made a what is it? I don't know what they're, like 25 says, yeah, like, he didn't, okay. And then like, even like Washington, like, they would be able to come in and like compete with an SEC team and they're not in the SEC. That's not the competition that they're usually facing. So I feel pretty okay about it.”
Crimson Tide historians may also have a field day by focusing on Kalen DeBoer’s last job before coming to Tuscaloosa. Back in 1926, Alabama Coach Wallace Wade led the Tide to its first ever national championship. The team beat the Washington Huskies to do it. The part of Alabama’s fight song that goes “remember the Rose Bowl we’ll win then,” refers to that 1926 game against DeBoer’s former team.
