Entering first season at Alabama, Kalen DeBoer faces long shadows

Last season, Kalen DeBoer seemed primed to become a second “Washington Monument” in Seattle. DeBoer had channeled his own version of Don James. DeBoer achieved results that hadn’t been seen since “The Dawg Father” roamed the sidelines in Seattle. While DeBoer fell short of achieving Washington’s first national championship since 1991, DeBoer entered a chase of one of Don James’ great disciples in Nick Saban when DeBoer took over the Alabama job back in January.

DeBoer now faces summits of college football’s two greatest coaching immortals in Paul “Bear” Bryant and directly succeeding Saban. Unlike any time in college history, let alone in Alabama history, no man has had to face the standard set but two coaching immortals.

While Saban eclipsed Bryant, the street and stadium DeBoer travels daily bears Bryant’s name and six national championships will never be eclipsed.

As Saban enters his first season as a member of the media, he is often asked questions and doesn’t shy away from answers, especially about Alabama. Saban was asked about how the culture of Alabama is now under DeBoer compared to how it was when Saban ran it.

“All I can tell you is I went and watched last week’s scrimmage on Saturday, and that team still has the same culture they had when I was the coach,” Saban said of DeBoer’s culture . “They play with toughness, They play with great effort. They execute well. They have got good discipline. So, Kalen has done a really good job.”

DeBoer was asked this week during his Western Kentucky press conference of Saban’s comments, “It’s important to me. There’s a style of play that wins football games and that’s really what we’re focused on, but there’s a lot of details and a lot of things off the field that are really important to playing at the highest level and being this program that’s been at that level for so many years and so many decades. So, but yeah, I appreciate those comments from Coach and that perspective.”

As the honeymoon period for DeBoer is upon us, a question DeBoer received about first game jitters elicited a response of, “I don't know if I get jitters, but I think it's good to have butterflies. It's good to have like an excitement, just excited for the week. We talk to our guys about whether it's nervousness or anxiety. Butterflies, that's not a bad thing, because it means it's really important. It means that they've put a lot into it and they want to perform well.”

Performing well is not the standard of Alabama fans, winning national championships are. The butterflies DeBoer won’t be going away soon because once the honeymoon is over, how DeBoer compares to Bryant and Saban won’t be going away anytime soon.