Everything Kalen DeBoer said to reporters on first day at Alabama

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Alabama officially introduced Kalen DeBoer as its 28th head football coach on Saturday at Bryant-Denny Stadium. Following introductory comments from UA president Stuart Bell, athletic director Greg Byrne and DeBoer, Byrne and DeBoer spoke separately to print and television media. Below is everything DeBoer said to reporters.

DeBoer on following Nick Saban at Alabama…

“I think, first of all, just to be the head coach here at Alabama, but also understanding if that was going to happen, you had to be the coach to follow Coach Saban. Like I said earlier, I don’t take that lightly. I take it as quite an honor, to be honest with you. I don’t think there’s any comparison you can make really to anyone out there that have been at different places throughout their career. The best you can do is take my experiences – and this is me personally, which are on a smaller level. And we’re talking about with Coach Saban, it’s just great ones who have been in places. 

“Coach Peterson at UW, Jeff Tedford and Pat Hill at Fresno and everyone down the line. I think embracing everything about it that has made that place great and especially the great people and, in these particular cases, the great head coaches, embracing that, learning as quickly as possible, trying to make as few mistakes as far as losing the traditions that are important to the fan base, to the players and all those type of things, I think that’s what you can do. That’s all you can ask yourself is just embrace all that comes along with being in this position and following Coach Saban.”

DeBoer on building out his staff…

“Certainly have a strong feeling of what I’d like to do, but I don’t want to get too much into that. I think that will happen in some capacity quicker here the next day or so, the next 24 hours. But I want to be very thorough, and the fine line with that is that as players are being sought after on our own roster, there’s less people to get in front of them. So I’m working tirelessly to manage who we have here, have one-on-ones, group meetings. I’ve done that a bunch already, last night and today. I’ll work on getting the staff in order very quickly.

“There will be a touch of Washington in there, but I understand there needs to be some SEC ties, some southeast ties that can help bridge the gap of maybe my experiences here. There are experiences having been West Coast and Indiana and just some of the recruiting, but I don’t want to lead you on that there’s not every coach’s phone number in my phone right now. Just got to get myself in a spot with the right people are around me. 

“And I will say this – I wasn’t a West Coast guy either. I’d never been to the West Coast until just a few years ago and coached at two universities out there. So I think there’s an ability to adapt that I feel confident in for where we’re at. I understand what the SEC is all about and kind of how strong and how much it means here.”

DeBoer on the threat of players entering the portal…

“It’s real strong, really strong. I don’t care where you’re at, if you see an opportunity to add to your team – and especially if I might hurt one of your competitors – you’re going to do that. Unfortunately, that’s the situation that college football, college athletics is in right now where those things can happen pretty quickly and many cases, there’s not much as far as consequences if you’re not handling things the right way.

“I think I tried to show them a little bit of my vision, but I also told them that I understand you can’t buy into my vision until you truly know me.So just give me a chance. Give me a chance to show you a few of the things. I’m going to listen to you. I’m going to meet you where you’re at right now and try to show them through some proof of things that have happened, whether it’s at Washington. We haven’t gotten into much beyond that. 

“But what this will look like, how great it will be out there on the football field because of what we’re doing schematically, because of the people that are going to be around you as you show up in the weight room for that workout and the people that are around you from a coaching staff standpoint developing you. Show them that their development and what we’ve done with guys moving on to the NFL in the past and how we do that, that it’s special.”

DeBoer on who shaped his offensive philosophy…

“It’s not 100, but there’s a lot of stuff in today’s age of film and how accessible it all is, it’s not like I’ve just sat with one person or a few people. I’ve been doing it for over 20 years, and I think being with some people that are driven and motivated to do it the best has helped push me and putting a system together over 20-plus years that allows us to have the flexibility to do something from one year to the other that fits our personnel, we’re able to do that. Just most recently, I think you look at our staff that we had at Washington, and it’s a group of guys that just are so cohesive and they built on the system I put in place.

“Head coach-wise, Jeff Tedford would be someone I would throw out there, and we were together here in 2017 in this stadium. It wasn’t one that I want to remember. It was kind of a long day, but I think there were some things even that day that we did that went pretty well schematically. There’s just a lot of pieces that go into it, a lot of different mentors. Some mentors from the head coach but you asked specifically from an offensive standpoint.”

DeBoer on the characteristics he looks for in a quarterback…

“I think it’s got to be someone who’s a great leader. We’ve won different ways. We’ve won national championships with guys who would rather run before throw, and we’ve won it with guys who are pure pocket passers and not very mobile. I think, again, a flexibility of our offense to work around the personnel is huge. Our offense will be quarterback-driven. We need to make sure, though, that the skill around him is all a threat to score from anywhere on the football field. I understand sometimes with tight ends or something like that might not be that, but that person is on the field for purpose to help us be explosive, and then everything starts up front with our offensive line.”

DeBoer on embracing help from Saban…

“I rang him up this morning. I talked to him yesterday and that was kind of an introductory call just to get some insight but just some insight on a few things. I feel confident enough in my abilities along with knowing that you have someone that wants this program to be so successful. I firmly 100 percent believe that he wants nothing but the best. Some leaders and some people when they leave, it’s like, ‘You know what, I want to be that legend and I don’t want it to be as good as it was when I was there.’ That’s obviously not the case. I think all of you would know that. He wants this thing even better. His legendary status will never be questioned.”

On Washington general manager Courtney Morgan…

“He’s just so tied into everyone in the recruiting world – players, staff members. He knows a lot of this roster. There are parents of players on this roster that he’s got their numbers and talking with them right now, trying to probably allude to what we’re trying to accomplish right now and holding people in place and not getting too antsy.”

DeBoer on when he knew he wanted the Alabama job…

“Everything with the opportunity happened so fast yesterday morning. So I honestly had to really think through that the night before. When you’ve done some things in a special way and I’ve been embraced by so many people in Seattle. I knew this was the right move. I knew this was the thing, not that I had to do but that I really wanted to do. But it wasn’t easy, it wasn’t easy. And that’s not a knock on Alabama and everything it stands for, that’s highlighting everything that I feel so strongly about back in Seattle at UW.”

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