Nick Saban is still beloved by his former Alabama players. (SEC Photo)
Q. I’m wondering how many coaches, friends, family told you it wasn’t smart to follow a legend, and how much did that enter into your thinking before you accepted?
KALEN DeBOER: Yeah, you know, I get it. I totally get it. I understand there’s only one Coach Saban. There will only ever be one Coach Saban. This program is special, and I guess I just take it as a great honor to be the one that gets to do everything we can to carry on the great tradition.
So much blood, sweat and tears, whether it’s the players and the alumni that have been in this program or coaches, and obviously referring to Coach Saban, so much is put into this place. We all have alma maters. We all have places that we have great pride in, and you always want that to be home. We always want to make those people proud of their alma mater and the work that’s been put in to set this program up for success.
But for me personally, it was just more about just understanding that coaching football is coaching football to some aspect, and you’ve got to try to simplify it down, as difficult and as complicated as you can make it. I’ve done this for enough years and seen what good culture looks like and maybe even what a culture that needs to improve on looks like, and it’s been just an awesome blessing to be a part of this program, to continue to have that expectation on us.
The alternative is to be at places where there aren’t expectations. At some point there’s been places where maybe a little bit of that has happened throughout my career, and this is a great place to be. I’m very blessed, very honored, and certainly acknowledge what you said, but we’re just going to focus on this team and being the best we can be and continue to build on the great tradition of Alabama football.
Q. I think when you first got hired, one of the first questions was how well will he be able to recruit in the Southeast. I think we’ve gotten a pretty immediate answer on that one. I’m curious what your thought processes are on how you define a great recruiter, and what your general thought processes are on player acquisition as a whole.
KALEN DeBOER: Yeah, I knew the intensity level that existed here in the SEC, and I think across college football it’s just so competitive. I understand that it certainly is different.
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.
There’s got to be some familiarity with coaches to be able to get started and get off to a fast jump there, especially in these early months, because you’re behind when you come in and it’s the middle of January and you haven’t even put a staff together, and all of a sudden it’s the end of January and you’ve got a week or two to hit the road. This is the last time you can be on the road other than a little time in May, and by that time the official visits are all set up for June. We were behind.
So I had to have a staff that would work well together. I think it’s all hands on deck with our staff. Those within the building would feel that, just kind of sharing, that it’s a team effort. But we also certainly have some guys and staff on the field and off the field that just work relentlessly every single day, just to build those relationships, to help us get guys to campus.
I think that’s when we’re at our best because the culture of our team as we have that energy within the building when prospects do come onto campus, they see this is something they want to be a part of.
All that together has led to a lot of success here early on. Obviously it’s an everyday thing. So it never stops. But we certainly understand that having the right guys in our program is all going to make us better coaches in a lot of ways.
