Alabama will name DeBoer its next head coach, sources told ESPN on Friday, replacing Nick Saban and his more than 200 wins and six national titles at the school.
DeBoer, 49, is 105-12 as a head coach and was named AP Coach of the Year at Washington last season on his way to the national championship game.
Now he must transition into a tougher-than-ever SEC that adds Texas and Oklahoma next season.
Why did the Tide choose DeBoer to lead the next era of Alabama football? And what’s next for Washington? We answer some of the most pressing questions about the move.
Over and above everything else, Alabama wanted a proven winner, and DeBoer has won everywhere he has been. He has won 11 or more games in seven of his nine seasons as a head coach. He took Washington to a Pac-12 championship and the College Football Playoff National Championship game in his second season at U-Dub.
Two of the other guys mentioned prominently in the Alabama coaching search, Dan Lanning and Steve Sarkisian, were a combined 0-5 against DeBoer over the past two seasons. DeBoer’s offenses were electric. The Huskies ranked 13th nationally in scoring this season and sixth in 2022. They averaged at least 36 points per game in both seasons, and look at the way quarterback Michael Penix Jr. blossomed under DeBoer at Washington.
It was important for Alabama to get someone with vast head-coaching experience. DeBoer has been a head coach in the Pac-12, at Fresno State and in the Division II ranks with Sioux Falls.
— Chris Low
Roster retention is going to be priority No. 1. A mass exodus of players to the portal could be crippling, especially since the ability to backfill won’t happen again until the portal reopens for non-graduates in the spring. Even then, most of the big names already made their moves. But setting aside that immediate concern, far and away the biggest challenge will be expectations. Not just wins and losses, but constantly being compared to Saban and how he did things.
While there’s no tower a la Bear Bryant to take down, DeBoer will have to walk a fine line implementing his process without appearing to step on Saban’s capital-P Process. Change too many things too quickly and the fan base and boosters might revolt. And in today’s game of NIL, you have to keep the donations coming. — Alex Scarborough
DeBoer has some positives working in his favor when it comes to the roster. The first is that we just went through the early signing period and all but six of Alabama’s original commitments enrolled early.
Classes have already started at Alabama, which means the prospects in the 2024 class who enrolled early can’t be released from their national letters of intent; they would have to transfer to leave. To do that, players would use their one-time transfer, but also need to get admitted and enroll at a new school.
That could prove difficult, with different institutions having different schedules, and players might have to wait until summer to
enroll.
