By Rock Westfall
Kalen DeBoer is an excellent head coach who may become the worst possible fit at Alabama.
No Risk, No Reward?
The shocking retirement of Nick Saban has set off a wild chain of events both on the coaching carousel and the transfer portal. And nobody is feeling the effect of this monumental transformation more than the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne moved quickly upon Saban’s retirement and hired Washington Huskies head coach Kalen DeBoer a couple of days later. DeBoer was universally acclaimed as the best choice by the college football media. The enthusiastic endorsements of the media were reminiscent of when Nebraska hired Scott Frost. And perhaps that was the beginning of the crisis that Alabama now confronts.
Byrne and Alabama made the safest possible choice. There appeared to be zero risk in hiring DeBoer away from Washington just days after he led the Huskies to the national championship game. In two years, DeBoer took a demoralized U-Dub program that went 4-8 in the season before his arrival to its highest final national ranking in 33 years.
This space advocated for the hiring of Lane Kiffin. While acknowledging DeBoer’s outstanding credentials, the emphasis was on fit rather than on pure ability.
In one short week, DeBoer has lost over 25 Alabama players to the transfer portal. The party is over in Tuscaloosa. And it is rational and reasonable to believe that Kiffin would have prevented the floodgates from blasting open.
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Knowledge is Power at a Dynastic Program
Lane Kiffin is the only man to lead the Ole Miss Rebels to an 11-win season. He accomplished that feat this past season. As he leads Ole Miss to unprecedented heights, Kiffin has developed a reputation as the Portal King.
Kiffin continues to land the best players in the portal at an alarming rate. At the same time, he recruits as well as can be expected at Oxford. The Rebels’ 2024 class ranks 20th. That may not sound great, but Ole Miss has never been a recruiting juggernaut.
Since 2021, Kiffin has kept Ole Miss at or below the top 20 in its annual recruiting classes. Consider that in 2018, under Matt Luke, the Rebels finished 39th in their recruiting class. There is no doubt that with the power of the Alabama brand, Kiffin certainly would have signed powerhouse classes while playing the portal like a maestro.
Most important of all, Kiffin knows Alabama football inside and out. As Nick Saban’s offensive coordinator from 2014 through 2016, Kiffin took the Tide out of the Stone Age into the modern era. He learned how to recruit at a national championship level and saw how the greatest program in college football history became that.
The Ultimate Comfort Zone
Saban fired Kiffin after a sloppy performance in the 2016 College Football Playoff. Kiffin was undeniably immature and distracted by his upcoming new job at Florida Atlantic, and it showed. Saban and Kiffin have played nice in the years that followed, but Saban never forgot. And there is the belief that Saban preferred Texas head coach and former Alabama OC Steve Sarkisian as his replacement.
While Saban had input on his successor, the final call belonged to Greg Byrne. It is no secret that Byrne disliked Kiffin and wanted nothing to do with him.
Hiring Kiffin would have required imagination, risk, courage, and the ability to acknowledge his maturation as a winning SEC head coach. Kiffin annoys button-down types with his X-post antics and colorful comments. But lost in that is how entertaining players, transferees, and recruits find the Late Lane Show.
Indeed, DeBoer made it easy for Byrne. DeBoer is a highly credentialed, straight-laced football coach with an impeccable resume. But there is nothing that could have prepared him for stepping into the Alabama job as Nick Saban’s replacement. Of the available candidates willing to take the job, only Lane Kiffin had such credentials.
Safety First and Don’t Rock the Boat
More often than not, athletic directors are all about self-preservation. That means making safe choices and winning the press conference. That way, if things go wrong, the AD can say everyone agreed with his decision when it was originally made.
Greg Byrne made the safest choice possible in Kalen DeBoer, who was one win away from a national championship. DeBoer has no X-post history of note and is not a quote or comedy machine. All he does is win wherever he goes. He is the sweetest vanilla an AD could ever hope to find.
Byrne thinks he is off the hook because of the media adulation of this hire. There is nothing to criticize. At least not yet.
But DeBoer has entered a part of the country that may as well be a foreign land. Sure, Washington has passionate fans. But located in Seattle, they compete for attention with the NFL Seahawks, MLB Mariners, NHL Kraken, and MLS Sounders. The Huskies are just another story in the crowded Pacific Northwest sports scene.
In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and most of the American Southeast, college football is life, death, religion, and all that matters. DeBoer has never coached at this level nor in this region in any capacity. He is unprepared for the raw emotion and raging passion of SEC fans, let alone the spoiled rotten legions of demanding Alabama backers who are fully focused and without pro sports distractions.
SEC recruiting is ruthless and cutthroat. DeBoer has never experienced anything close to what he is getting himself into at Alabama. In fact, the recent flood of Alabama players transferring out is a potential portent.
https://twitter.com/UnnecRoughness/status/1746212873599119509
An Inconvenient Truth
It is true that Kalen DeBoer is an elite college football head coach. It is true that, by the book, he is an outstanding hire who can’t be criticized. And it is true that he may succeed in T-Town. But DeBoer’s start has the aura of him being a babe in the jungle.
On the other hand, it is also true that Lane Kiffin is maturing, growing, and succeeding as an elite SEC head coach in a meteoric professional rise.
Kiffin knows the SEC recruiting and transfer portal wars and has a track record of mastering those challenges. He knows the passion of SEC fans in general and Alabama fans in particular. Kiffin is connected to big-time donors and power players at Alabama and has relationships with them. Kiffin is a legend with the best players in the Southeast, who love his schtick and revere his ability.
There is no way Kiffin would have allowed a mass exodus of players from Alabama in seven days. That is based on his record of recruiting portal prowess, SEC recruiting success, and his successful tenure of transforming the Alabama offense.
Alabama, Saban, Byrne, and DeBoer may have made a fatal mistake. They may end up learning that safety is death. You can be an elite coach and the absolute worst possible fit at the same time.
Lane Kiffin may end up with the last laugh and a desperate phone call for help in a couple of years.
https://twitter.com/TransferPortal_/status/1747041949331190171
