DALLAS — The legacy of a legend hung around the hotel ballroom where new Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer took to the Southeastern Conference media days stage Wednesday morning.
It felt that way because the legend was, quite literally, hanging out in the room. As DeBoer talked, Nick Saban listened attentively from the elevated SEC Network set constructed in the corner.
Taking on a pundit role in his newfound retirement, Saban boosted the number of head coaches from last year’s College Football Playoff in attendance at this year’s media event to three, as SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey pointed out: Saban, who led Alabama, and DeBoer, who led Washington, were joined by Texas’ Steve Sarkisian.
The new leader of the Crimson Tide, pre-empting one of the main narratives of media days, addressed Saban at the end of his opening statement to reporters.
People are also reading…
“Personally and on behalf of everyone with Alabama football and the University of Alabama, we appreciate everything Coach has done to make this foundation strong to where we can continue to build on it, continue to help make those that are supportive of our program proud, and just appreciate all those years and hard work that’s been put into this,” DeBoer said.
Just a few questions into his news conference, DeBoer faced the obvious one: Did the whole notion of following a legend give him pause?
“I get it. I totally get it,” he said. “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. ... 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.”
Of far more interest to a school like Missouri, which will visit Tuscaloosa for just the second time ever when the Tigers face the Tide on Oct. 26, is whether beating DeBoer’s version of Alabama will be as Herculean a task as it was with Saban’s teams.
The former ’Bama coach doesn’t seem to think the Tide capture the same level of success this year. Saban didn’t pick Alabama to be a participant in the 2024 SEC title game, instead deferring to Texas and Georgia.
That brought out the kind of ironic zinger from Alabama guard Tyler Booker that makes talking season purr.
“He always said, ‘Don’t let some guy who lives in his mom’s basement determine how you feel,’ ” the third-year player said. “I’m not going to let a guy who plays golf all day determine how I feel.”
CFP cool on continuing expansion
Speaking of conference title games, College Football Playoff Executive Director Rich Clark presented to reporters Wednesday morning and reaffirmed the postseason body’s commitment to rewarding power conference champions with playoff bids in the new 12-team model.
“I think it’s wise to honor the championship games because championships do mean something,” he said.
Clark, who took on the role in June after serving as the superintendent of the U.S. Air Force Academy, also quashed the notion that a further expansion of the College Football Playoff from 12 to 14 teams is inevitable.
“I would not make that assumption,” he said. “We need to see how the 12-team playoff goes and then make that assessment.”
A burnt-orange parallel?
Texas’ debut, part of the reason media days were held in the state and some three hours away from the school, brought out a parallel to Mizzou that the Tigers will hope is some sort of forecast.
Sarkisian, the Longhorns coach, received a question about how the program’s early struggles in his tenure shifted into a College Football Playoff run last year and continued status despite the move to the SEC this year.
In 2021, his first year in Austin, Texas went 5-7, missing a bowl game. UT then ramped up to 8-5 in 2022 and 12-2 last year, bowing out to DeBoer and Washington in a playoff semifinal.
“Well, I think part of it was our culture,” Sarkisian said. “We had to keep building our culture, the things that were important to us, and that takes time. It takes time to learn the schemes. You bring in coaches and you have an idea of what you want to run, and that’s nothing against a previous staff, but maybe they didn’t recruit the types of players that fit what we wanted to be and how we wanted to play. So that takes time, too.”
And much like how MU’s Eli Drinkwitz has cited the Tigers’ struggle to find a breakthrough in his first three seasons for why an explosive 2023 came together, Sarkisian pointed toward the Longhorns’ ability to stay the course at the beginning.
“I’ll tell you this much: 5-7 in Austin, Texas, sucks,” Sarkisian said. “That was hard. That was hard on me. That was hard on players. That was hard on a lot of people. 8-5 was a little more palatable for people. But as you continue to stay committed to who you are and you stay committed to your course of action, you stay committed to what you believe in, over time you start to reap the benefits of that.”