Nick Saban likes what he’s seen Kalen DeBoer ahead of Year 2 at Alabama for his successor. His first test of the season will come on Saturday against Florida State. During a hit on ESPN’s College GameDay, Saban heaped some praise on the job DeBoer is doing. While the program fell a bit short in […]
Nick Saban likes what he’s seen Kalen DeBoer ahead of Year 2 at Alabama for his successor. His first test of the season will come on Saturday against Florida State.
During a hit on ESPN’s College GameDay, Saban heaped some praise on the job DeBoer is doing. While the program fell a bit short in 2024, the seismic shift of the legendary coach’s retirement might’ve had something to do with that. This season, it feels like DeBoer is truly in control of the ship.
“I’ve been around the team a little bit this year at Alabama, been to practice, and I see a different culture with this group,” Saban proclaimed. “There were so many changes last year — new coaches, players leaving, players coming in. But this year, they didn’t have anybody get in the portal.
“I do think (Florida State) has been a very difficult preparation. Florida State has 13 or 14 starters out of the portal, plus they’ve got a new offensive coordinator and a new defensive coordinator. So for a first game, it’s always a tough preparation, but this one is especially difficult with all the change.”
As you can tell, Saban is a fan of what DeBoer has been doing, but it’ll all be for naught if Alabama falters on Saturday. They’ll need to start off their season with a resounding win over Florida State, or they risk some unflattering commentary.
More on the Alabama Crimson Tide, 2025 season
Leading DeBoer’s team in 2025 will be quarterback Ty Simpson. It’s his first season as the starter for the Crimson Tide, and make no mistake, he’s ready to lead the charge for his coach.
Earlier this offseason, he explained how the team is all-in on DeBoer, known he’ll put his stamp on the culture Saban previously built: “We’re going to make sure that our attention’s on Coach DeBoer and we’re going to do it his way,” Simpson said at the Manning Passing Academy. “And that’s what I think the leaders understand is, Coach Saban’s not going to walk in here.
“This place is built on toughness and understands we’re doing things that nobody else does. Coach DeBoer has modeled that with his philosophies, as well, and I think we’ve had one of the best offseasons in my four years of being here.”
With DeBoer having a full year under his belt now, Simpson believes Alabama is ready to get back to their championship standard: “Last year, it wasn’t the standard of Alabama football, losing three or four games. Our standard is championships, winning games and being physical.
“After seeing last year and leaving that bad taste in our mouths, everybody’s like, we’ve got to do something different. We couldn’t be how we were last year. [In] our first leadership group, Coach DeBoer said that,” Simpson stated.
“We all agreed, we’ve got to do things differently now and we’ve got to understand that we have to come in with that physical, Alabama-standard mindset, but also understand that Coach DeBoer is going to put his little nuances on [it].”
— On3’s Nick Schultz contributed to this article.
Category: General Sports
