Paul Finebaum breaks down new era of Alabama football under Kalen DeBoer

The Alabama football program under Kalen DeBoer is off and running. The new Crimson Tide head coach has been busy since taking over for Nick Saban earlier this month.

DeBoer has been putting together a staff, recruiting his own roster to try to keep players out of the transfer portal and adding players from the transfer portal to his roster over the past 12 days.

ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum was recently asked about Kalen DeBoer and shared what he has seen from the former Washington head coach thus far since he arrived in Tuscaloosa.

“I still think Alabama is in good shape. It’s got an infrastructure that is second to none,” Paul Finebaum said Monday morning on McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning. “And I say that having had some conversations in the last couple of days with very important people at Alabama.”

While Alabama may be in good shape long term under DeBoer, there have without a doubt been some frustrating moments over the past couple of weeks.

Alabama has lost several important players to the transfer portal since Nick Saban retired, including safety Caleb Downs, quarterback Julian Sayin and receiver Isaiah Bond. Downs and Sayin both transferred to Ohio State, while Bond ended up at Texas.

“We’re under two weeks since Nick Saban left, and it has been about as rollercoaster a period of time as I can ever remember,” Finebaum said

“But it will settle down. And you have to look at Kalen DeBoer as somebody who is a high-pedigree coach who is trying to deal with the reality of a lightning fast change in college football that has never existed before. … This is something different. I should’ve been expecting it, but it’s still been a shock to the system.”

Finebaum added that over the past couple of years when he was contemplating what would happen when Nick Saban retired, he didn’t expect Kalen DeBoer to be the replacement.

However, that is where Alabama is, and he expects it to work out in the long run. There could be some rough stretches as DeBoer gets underway, but ultimately he expects him to be successful.

“I do think there’s a reality. … We all had our idea of who would be there and that person that ended up there was not exactly on too many fans’ list of likely candidates,” Finebaum said. “So I think there’s a period of adjustment here. And I still don’t know how to characterize it.”