Keon Sabb details his decision to leave Michigan, transfer to Alabama

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Unlike his new teammates at Alabama, Keon Sabb was celebrating on the night of Jan. 1 in Pasadena, California. The second-year safety had helped Michigan beat the Crimson Tide in the Rose Bowl semifinal to advance to the national title game.

One week later in Houston, Sabb and the Wolverines defeated Washington to claim their first championship since 1997. Now at Alabama, Sabb not only has bragging rights over the players on last year’s team but those who came over from Washington with Kalen DeBoer .

Seven months after the College Football Playoff, Sabb, DeBoer and his Alabama teammates have fun with it as they collectively prepare for the 2024 campaign – this time as one.

“We go back and forth about it, but it always ends with a respectful thing,” Sabb said. “It’s definitely fun coming in how I did, but I think Coach DeBoer, we always have our little jokes around, and the guys on the team, it’s almost every day. So I think it’s fun.”

Sabb is entering his third year of college and is coming off his most involved season yet, where he was on the field for 14 of Michigan’s 15 games and made five starts. The 6-foot-1, 206-pound safety recorded 28 tackles, five pass breakups and two interceptions last year and would have been a big part of the Wolverines’ defense, had he stayed in Ann Arbor.

But attrition at Michigan led him to weigh his options. UM coach Jim Harbaugh accepted the Los Angeles Chargers’ job, and co-defensive coordinator Steve Clinkscale followed him to the West Coast. Meanwhile, safeties coach Jay Harbaugh left for the Seattle Seahawks. The Wolverines also led all schools with 13 players selected during the 2024 NFL Draft.

“All the coaches going to the NFL, all different places – L.A., the Seahawks – I felt like all the guys I really built a really good bond with ended up leaving, so I felt like it was the best decision for me to go somewhere else,” Sabb said.

“I feel like I made the right decision here.”

Sabb entered the transfer portal on Feb. 16, and four days later, he committed to Alabama. He is a Glassboro, New Jersey native, but Sabb is familiar with some pieces – old and new – to the Crimson Tide program. General manager Courtney Morgan was at Michigan before he joined DeBoer’s staff at Washington. He also attended IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, which was the same high school for Alabama’s Tyler Booker and Jihaad Campbell .

In his first interview since arriving in Tuscaloosa, Sabb explained why he chose the Tide.

“Regardless of the coaching change, I understood the standard here,” Sabb said.

“There’s guys that I’ve been with through high school. There’s some different coaches that I’ve met along the way. So it made my transition really easy. Once I got here, I felt like it was home.”

He also liked what he saw from Alabama’s 2023 team during the New Year’s Day matchup.

“How hard they fought,” Sabb recalled. “That was our toughest game last year, for sure. They definitely got us to the end, that last play. So I definitely could see out there those guys were passionate about playing football. That definitely helped, as well.”

Sabb was a significant addition to the Tide roster this offseason. In addition to replacing both starting cornerbacks from the 2023 squad, Alabama saw both of its starting safeties from last year’s team move on from the program. Jaylen Key was selected with the final pick of the NFL draft, and Caleb Downs transferred to Ohio State after Nick Saban retired.

Enrolling in the spring, Sabb quickly began receiving first-team reps in March, and he was one of the Tide’s starting safeties on A-Day, along with returning veteran Malachi Moore . That has carried over to preseason camp, where Sabb has impressed his new coaches.

“Keon has a very special talent,” said Alabama defensive coordinator Kane Wommack . “Obviously, he had some tremendous production at Michigan, won a national championship there. And we were very fortunate to be able to have that production and that experience because experience is finite, right? And so for us, I think he has done a really good job of leaning into our scheme, what we do.

“I thought from Day 1, Week 1, he did a really great job of going the extra mile to get the verbiage and the terminology down so that he could go execute and play at a high level. And now you see him starting to lead on the back end – him and Malachi Moore. I think those guys are doing a tremendous job of communication on the back.”

Despite the changes, Sabb and Moore give the Tide an experienced duo in the back end of the defense. Some say they could make up the best safety tandem in the country this year.

“From Day 1 really, we’ve been really tight,” Sabb said. “He’s been showing me things. I’ve been learning from him. He’s been learning from me. I think we’re gonna be a really good tandem, for sure. I don’t even want to just say duo. I think our DB corps in general, the safety room is extremely talented, and the corner room is extremely talented, as well.

“It’s gonna be fun.”

Moore added, “Keon’s been a great addition to the team. He’s a great brother that we brought in, and he’s done a great job of coming in and being about his business. The way he carries himself, he carries himself like a pro, and we feed off each other.

“We always tell each other our goals for practice and making sure that we’re holding each other to the standard of being the best safety duo in the country and the best secondary and the best defense and the best team in the country. He’s done a great job, and it’s gonna be fun playing with him.”

Alabama and Washington both fell short of reaching their ultimate goal last season, which has allowed the old and new pieces in the program to unite around a common focus this spring and summer. The Tide hasn’t hoisted the national championship trophy since the end of the 2020 campaign. But Sabb, fresh off a title-winning year, knows what it takes to win.

And he sees those ingredients in his new home at Alabama.

“Everybody has that chip on their shoulder, and I think that’s a really big thing for sure,” Sabb said. “Everybody having that chip and wanting to win, I think we have that here. Everybody’s trying to prove themselves and go out there and just do their job.”

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