DALLAS — Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer made a point of acknowledging Nick Saban during his opening statement here at SEC Media Days on Wednesday.
“I haven’t seen Coach around here, but I do want to first of all congratulate him,” DeBoer said.
Funny thing: Saban was sitting only about 50 yards away, taking in DeBoer’s speech from the SEC Network’s brightly lit stage within the same ballroom at the Omni Hotel Downtown Dallas where DeBoer was speaking.
Never mind DeBoer’s powers of observation, he’s obviously pretty good at reading the room. The Crimson Tide’s new head man makes a point to acknowledge Saban’s presence whenever and wherever he appears in public. It’s a wise strategy considering the clout that Alabama’s former head coach still carries around college football.
Saban, 72, retired in January after 17 years as Alabama’s head coach and 50 years in coaching. But even in retirement he remains the brightest beacon in the game.
Not only is Saban very visible on TV sets across the nation this week, he has been conspicuous in and around his hometown of Tuscaloosa and the University of Alabama campus as well. While some retired coaches try to stay as far away as possible from their haunts, Saban still maintains an office on campus and frequents the football facilities and other Alabama sports venues.
Parties on both sides are quite pleased about this, DeBoer chief among them. One reporter pointed out Wednesday that the 49-year-old South Dakota native, who came to Tuscaloosa from the University of Washington, never has coached south of Carbondale, Illinois.
To that, DeBoer responded, “well, I sweat more.”
Jokes aside, DeBoer said he’d be a fool not to tap Saban as a resource. So, he does as often as possible.
“There’s only one coach Saban and there will only ever be one coach Saban,” DeBoer said Wednesday. “I just take it as a great honor to be the one that gets do everything we can to carry on the great tradition at Alabama.”
The relationship might become slightly more strained going forward as Saban moves farther from his role as Alabama coaching legend and into the one he’ll fill this fall as one of the hosts of ESPN’s “College GameDay.” He already has ruffled some feathers in Crimson Tide Nation this week by picking Georgia to win the SEC Championship game over Texas this year.
Asked Wednesday what he thought about that, Alabama offensive lineman Tyler Booker took Saban to task.
“I’m not too worried about it because he’s an external factor now,” said the 6-foot-5, 352-pound junior guard. “He works at the stadium, not inside the facility anymore.”
Booker had more for his former coach.
“(Saban) always said, ‘don’t let somebody who lives in his mom’s basement determine how you feel. So, I’m not going to let a guy who plays golf all day determine how I feel,” Booker quipped.
Booker was smiling and reporters were laughing when he made those remarks. This week, at least, everybody’s simply having fun with this new situation.
Meanwhile, the respect for Saban in and around the program remains quite real. DeBoer wanted to make that clear from the jump. That’s why he wanted to say something Wednesday about Saban recently winning the Icon Award at the ESPYs.
Saban’s acceptance speech from that event has been described as “legendary.”
“I thought it was really cool winning the ESPY the other night,” said DeBoer, who did not see it live. “It seemed like every time I got a chance to see the speech, it was just a little blurb. Finally got to see the whole thing, and there’s always something that we’ve taken from his speeches. Well-deserved with that honor.”
DeBoer has a pretty good game himself. His work to date just has been far from the Southeast. He brings to Alabama a 104-12 career record. A lot of that success was on the NAIA level (67-3 at Sioux Falls), where he won three national championships and went 17-2 in the playoffs. But it was his 25-3 mark and College Football Playoff appearance with the Huskies the past two seasons that landed DeBoer the Alabama gig.
Hard to argue with that win-loss mark, but critics pointed to DeBoer’s lack of experience in the cutthroat game of recruiting in the Deep South as a reason for skepticism.
Six months into the job, DeBoer can point to Alabama’s No. 2 national recruiting ranking for the Class of 2024 and No. 2 in the ongoing pursuit of the 2025 class.
“Yeah, I knew the intensity level that existed here in the SEC,” DeBoer said. “I think across college football it’s just so competitive. But I understand that it certainly is different here. So, I knew it was important for me to put the right people around me. As much as I can preach relationships and getting to know guys and feel like there’s a way that I can get guys to feel that this is a program they want to be a part of, I understand that there’s got to be familiarity with a region.”
That’s where Saban proved to be such a great ally. He has remained available to see visiting recruits as often as possible since announcing his retirement in January. Otherwise, DeBoer has leaned hard into the expansive Alabama support staff that has long anchored the program’s recruiting efforts.
Saban remains very well-versed in the makeup of the Tide’s roster and the program’s wants and needs in the near future. He still likes what he sees.
“I believe in our Alabama team, too,” Saban said of picking Georgia and Texas one and two. “And I believe in Jalen Milroe. I just think the question marks in the secondary, until those get resolved, it’s hard to sort of jump on that bandwagon.”
While Saban still uses “our” in reference to Alabama, he said he intends to be objective when it comes to his analysis of the SEC and college football this fall. Hence, his prediction of Georgia winning.
But he also doesn’t plan to be overly critical or a second-guesser.
“I don’t want to be controversial,” he told The Associated Press. “You could take any decision in any situation that anybody makes and make it controversial. … I’m still a coach at heart.”
