Kalen DeBoer speaks about Nick Saban’s influence, first interaction

So far, new Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer has done the best he possibly can in filling in the shoes left behind by legendary head coach Nick Saban. Currently boasting the No. 1 recruiting class for 2025. But everyone knows his true test will be on the field this upcoming season for the Crimson Tide.

Replacing Saban is no easy task, but the coach who many regard as the greatest of all time will still have an office in Alabama’s football and provide his input where necessary. And in a recent conversation with Joel Klatt, DeBoer was asked about Saban’s impact in his hiring process earlier this year.

“I’m sure that there was a conversation or two, I’m not aware of those conversations but I just know the places I’ve been,” DeBoer said. “When you pour everything you have into that place, so Washington, Fresno State, and it’s going in a good direction, you want it to continue on. I want those programs, the University Sioux Falls and even Eastern Michigan, Indiana, those places you want what you did and poured into that to continue on to experience and grow.”

“Because it will still come back to hey, that time in history and past where you did your part to make it what it is today and into the future. So, I’m very confident that Coach [Saban] would have had some thoughts because he wants him to continue at a high level.”

DeBoer also pulled back the curtain on some of his conversations with Saban prior to his hiring. Revealing a special connection that two have with a former longtime Washington head coach who Saban worked under in his very first college coaching job as a graduate assistant at Kent State in 1973.

“I did reach out to him even before I was offered the job officially just that morning, which I think would have been the Friday morning, the cool connection there was Don James … Man, just hearing him talk about that relationship, what that meant to him, and things that he learned even during that time,” DeBoer said. “And I know what Don James meant to Washington and where I was at, it was really a cool connector to kind of get that conversation going. But then I heard him talk a lot about just the program kind of getting to know each other just a little bit.”

Saban’s legacy looms so large that his humble beginnings in the coaching world are often overlooked. Getting his start as a graduate assistant before become a position coach, a coordinator, and then a head coach just like most in the industry.

But the legacy he left behind at Alabama is beyond remarkable after leading the program to nine SEC Championships and six national titles. A standard that DeBoer will look to uphold for a program that has become accustomed to winning at a rate that very few have in college football history.

“I think shoot, just another person that has done it well that you want to really help make proud of what they’ve put into it and that’s what we’re trying to do here. We’re trying to make everyone who came before us proud of what happened in the alumni, of course the fan base,”DeBoer explained.

“But all these these coaches that have poured everything into making the championships happen here, we want to make them proud. And we want to continue to build this program on to where those that come after us, they got an even better foundation than what was here before I got here.”