🏈 🔵 Why Alabama Nailed The Kalen DeBoer Hire
Through 116 matchups as head coach, Kalen DeBoer has won over 89% of his matchups at Sioux Falls, Fresno State, and Washington. Nick Saban won 87% of all contests at Alabama.
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Why Alabama Nailed The Kalen DeBoer Hire
Hey friends,
Last week, seven-time national championship-winning head coach Nick Saban retired from Alabama after an illustrious 17-year career with the Crimson Tide.
Alabama Athletic Director Greg Byrne moved rapidly to find Saban’s successor, and just two days later, the program landed on Washington head coach Kalen DeBoer to be its next leader.
On the surface, Alabama couldn’t have followed through with a more proven hire than DeBoer. In just two years at Washington, the South Dakota native took a 4-8 bunch and instantly won 25 games.
DeBoer took home Pac-12 Coach of the Year honors twice, two bowl victories, a Pac-12 Championship, and an undefeated record over other Alabama coaching candidates in Dan Lanning and Steve Sarkisian.
At Washington, DeBoer won over 89% of his matchups and concluded his tenure with just three losses. Similarly, at Alabama, Saban finished his Alabama career with an 87% winning percentage.
However, the two coaching titans aren’t great at manning sidelines and bringing together locker rooms through just scheming Xs-and-Os. Instead, both leaders’ relationship-driven approaches stand tall among the rest and have led to consistent success at all of the game’s levels.
Let’s dive into why Alabama hit the nail on the head with hiring DeBoer while also drawing parallels to Saban’s previously used coaching philosophy at Alabama:
It’s All About Relationships
College football stands apart from the NFL by one simple, yet vast, aspect — the generation of trust to form lasting relationships.
More now than ever, high school recruits and transfer portal prospects are committing to coaches rather than brands. At Washington, DeBoer’s national championship-caliber unit ranked No. 26 in 247Sports’ talent rankings.
But, as seen by cohesion on offense and a bend-not-break mentality defensively, few squads matched Washington’s togetherness and unity curated by trust.
“The relationships I have today, because of my days playing football, are what I want to give these guys,” DeBoer told me this summer. “We have a staff full of coaches who share at least a part of that philosophy as part of theirs, and that’s why they’re here. We’re building better men each and every day… 10, 15, 20 years from now, I can’t wait to see these guys and the families they have.”
Before Alabama’s 42-28 victory over LSU in November, Saban uttered a similar sentiment on the Pat McAfee Show. For both coaches, the joy in helping young men achieve their dreams through stern, yet thoughtful coaching, is key to driving a culture of togetherness and accountability.
“But I think now, and I enjoy this so much more, is you really want players to respect you, so you’re trying to teach a player to do something, and he sees that it makes him better,” Saban said. “So then he has a respect for you, and because he has this respect, he doesn’t want to disappoint you, so you’re helping him. But yet, you’ve created a relationship with him that makes him want to do things at a high level for you on a consistent basis because you helped him get better.”
Bryne, Alabama’s athletic director, had a shotgun seat to Saban’s success and closely monitored his model from Paul W. Bryant Hall to Bryant-Denny Stadium. DeBoer’s attitude on relationships draws eerily similar parallels to the now-retired legend.
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The Best Coaches Take Advantage of Breaks
College football is a business, and coaches at all levels know it better than anyone else.
The sport’s elite brands reside in tiers vastly more valuable than counterparts in similar leagues and conferences.
While Washington was beginning to draft DeBoer an updated contract to lock the head coach down for the foreseeable future, Alabama’s prestige and blue-blood image proved to be an opportunity DeBoer simply couldn’t refuse.
In 2005, DeBoer received his first head coaching opportunity at Sioux Falls, as he followed in his former mentor Bob Young’s footsteps at his alma mater.
There, DeBoer compiled a 67-3 record, won three NAIA national championships in 2006, 2008, and 2009, and amassed his first Power Five gig 10 years later as Indiana’s offensive coordinator.
Now, just five years after leading the Hoosiers’ attack, DeBoer is in the position to take over for the most storied coach in college football history.
“You know, when you win three national championships, people kind of take note,” DeBoer told me. “I think in the end though, you make your breaks by getting to know people, enjoying the game, trying to help each other, and those relationships have been ones that brought more opportunities to myself.”
In 1990, however, a very similar break occurred for Saban. That year, the spry 39-year-old head coach took over Toledo for his first head stint.
Saban led the Rockets to a 9-2 record, including a 7-1 in-conference clip, en route to a MAC Championship distinction.
Less than 12 months later, Saban found himself running an NFL defense as the defensive coordinator of the Cleveland Browns.
When coaches have the opportunity to climb the ladder, they do so and don’t shy away from the chance to build legacies through their already-proven models.
The Importance of Being Player-Led
Through winter workouts and fall camp, college football coaches typically attempt to instill their brand and leadership style in players to curate a tight-knit culture.
In turn, most coaches hope to create championship-level locker rooms led by the players and simply monitored by the coaches.
This year, DeBoer helped Washington achieve a 14-1 record marked by a Pac-12 Championship and a national championship berth. While DeBoer “led” the team to new heights of success, he would tell you the team was truly led by quarterback Michael Penix Jr.’s vocal style and the rest of the Huskies’ captains.
“What we’re trying to build is going to be player-led,” DeBoer told me. “Helping them all feel comfortable with saying things to each other, the other guy not getting defensive, and that includes coaches, too. When coaches are critical and demanding excellence out of you, there has to be a relationship piece that is so strong that where they trust… The non-negotiables that we talk about is our family atmosphere.”
In August, Saban uttered the same, exact message to reporters when asked about how the program consistently achieves more success than other SEC foes.
"You know there's a couple of things about leadership," Saban said. "Everybody talks about leadership all the time. I think it's also important that, how many guys on the team need to be led? So if you've got a bunch of guys who are mature and going about things the right way, they're all setting a good example, they're all buying in.”
“They're all doing the things they need to do so they don't really necessarily need somebody to impact them every day to do the right things,” Saban continued. “The more guys that we have that fit in that category, that's more important than the guys that are the leaders on the team because I think that's what you're trying to get.”
Despite being over 2,500 miles apart in distance, Washington and Alabama were attempting to attract the same type of character at different settings.
DeBoer’s refreshed energy, outlook, and drive should keep Alabama in the SEC’s driver’s seat for years to come.
If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me by email at adam@brenemanmedia.com.
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Shoutout to Connor Krause for helping to write this newsletter and putting it together!
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