Why Kalen DeBoer never flinched when Michigan job came open | Exclusive
Blake Toppmeyer- Kalen DeBoer is all-in on Alabama. He says he never talked to Michigan or Penn State amid active coaching carousel.
- DeBoer welcomes Alabama expectations: "That's why I came here."
- Even amid Alabama quarterback competition, DeBoer identifies run blocking as "biggest question."
TUSCALOOSA, AL – Kalen DeBoer never talked to anyone at Michigan. Those are his words.
We’re seated inside DeBoer’s office at Alabama, and we’ve dispensed with a couple of softball questions to warm up the conversation, before shifting to some brass tacks.
Michigan.
You know, that blue-blooded job that opened last winter, that job that had DeBoer’s name linked to it for days, attached with enough stickiness it seemed like maybe this was more than rampant speculation.
Did DeBoer have interest in Michigan?
“I never once talked to anyone there,” he says.
He never talked to anyone at Penn State, either. Also, his words.
It’s important to be clear on these matters. So, I ask a second time: You personally did not talk to Penn State or Michigan, is that accurate?
“That’s accurate,” DeBoer said in an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with USA TODAY Sports earlier this spring. “That’s 100% accurate.”
As for whom his agent might have spoken to, well, agents like to talk, don’t they?
So, what of it, did DeBoer’s representatives talk to anyone?
“I mean, when they’re reaching out to people...,” he answers, before transitioning to another thought.
Hey, that’s agent business.
Agents drive up market value and secure extensions and raises, and they fatten buyouts. They use job openings to aid their quest. DeBoer’s agent, Jimmy Sexton, plays the coaching carousel game like Bobby Fischer played chess.
Only a fool would say the Michigan and Penn State coaching vacancies did nothing to help DeBoer’s paycheck. Those are premier jobs within college football’s best conference. DeBoer would’ve been well-qualified for either position. Those are my words.
Now, let’s return to DeBoer’s words, the words of a coach who’s not built to tuck and run.
“I never flinched or looked at or talked with anyone about going there once,” DeBoer says of Michigan. “I’m at Alabama. I don’t mean that in an arrogant way. I just, I have a great opportunity. I’m at a great place. I’ve got great support.
“I didn’t leave a place that I really enjoyed being at, at Washington, that was one of the premier programs in the country in my mind, to come to Alabama, to then leave Alabama two years later. My family enjoys it here.”
DeBoer came to Alabama, because he wants to be at Alabama. He wants this job. He accepted being Nick Saban’s heir. And, he embraces the demands of a fanbase that’ll only truly cherish him if he restores Alabama to a perch it hasn’t held since 2020.
That’s the only way to interpret his words.
In April, Alabama announced a contract extension for DeBoer that included a raise and a beefed-up buyout. Alabama would be on the hook for nearly $70 million if it fired DeBoer after this season. The deal runs through the 2032 season.
Alabama’s administration wants DeBoer to be its coach, wants him badly enough to push in more chips, lest it risk losing him during a particularly active carousel.
That’s how to interpret this extension.
“I’d much rather have a coach in demand,” Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne told me in March, when I asked him whether Alabama worried it might lose DeBoer, “than one that you’re saying, ‘Is that going to work here, long-term?’”
In truth, it’s fair to hold both thoughts, simultaneously.
Fair to recognize DeBoer was in demand, and why shouldn’t he be? He catapulted Washington to national runner-up status within two seasons. He took Alabama to the CFP quarterfinals and won 11 games in his second season. At almost any other program, that’d be a celebrated Year 2 achievement.
Alabama isn’t any other program, and Saban set an unreachable bar, so it’s also fair to wonder: Is this going to work, long-term?
What’s unfair to question anymore: Whether DeBoer wants to be at Alabama, and whether Alabama wants him.
They’re married to one another, and they’ve renewed their vows.
What Kalen DeBoer did after Alabama got trounced in Rose Bowl
What does one do in the 24 hours after suffering the ugliest postseason loss in program history?
That’s not a rhetorical question. It demands an answer.
So, what did DeBoer do the day after the Rose Bowl spanking?
“We flew home, and I was up here doing Zooms by 9 o’clock the next morning,” DeBoer said. “It was roster retention, it was portal. We were on it.”
“The very next morning,” DeBoer added, “our whole staff was locked in and rolling.”
No time to sit in the failure. No day off for a pity party. No coming in late so he could spend the morning licking wounds.
“When you fall short like we did,” DeBoer said, “we’ve got to raise our bar to catch others and close the gap.”
If anyone needs a reminder, the scoreboard looked like this:
That’s the gap between the national champion and the SEC’s runner-up.
“We’re hungry,” says senior safety Bray Hubbard. “Obviously we lost in the Rose Bowl last year, and there’s guys that still remember that. We’ve obviously got to learn from that.
“You have to use it as motivation.”
Hunger and motivation are good fuel.
Discipline, execution, sound fundamentals, all of those buzz words matter, too.
Also, another important maxim was on display in Pasadena, California: If you have a quarterback, you have a chance. Nobody possessed a better quarterback than Indiana. Fernando Mendoza torched the Tide, while Alabama starter Ty Simpson had one of his worst performances, before heading to the NFL.
The starting quarterbacks in DeBoer’s first two seasons at Alabama were Saban leftovers. Now, one of DeBoer’s recruits will take the controls.
That’s where we must take this conversation next.
How do you know Keelon Russell’s talent? Just listen
Close your eyes if you want to understand Keelon Russell’s talent.
Listen.
That’s Hubbard’s advice.
“You can hear the ball sizzle when he throws it,” Hubbard said of Russell, Alabama’s redshirt freshman quarterback.
DeBoer won’t name a starting quarterback at this point in the calendar. No need to.
Maybe, the quarterback battle between Russell, the promising 19-year-old, and veteran Austin Mack is as competitive as DeBoer makes it out to be. The spring game told a different story.
Russell sizzled. Mack struggled.
Teammates point to attributes in each that they like.
“Austin, he does a really good job of commanding the offense,” Hubbard told USA TODAY Sports, before the spring game. “Keelon is a younger guy. Austin has been in the system (longer), but I will say, Keelon has got a cannon. He gets us all the time with some balls. I’m like, ‘Wow, that takes a really impressive arm to throw.’ ”
Wide receiver Ryan Coleman-Williams brags on Russell’s playmaking skills. Of Mack, he says he knows ball, as a former backup to Michael Penix Jr., then Jalen Milroe and finally Simpson.
Perhaps this oversimplifies the situation, but the choice appears to boil down to talent and upside versus age and experience.
Mack hasn’t played much, but he’s played more than Russell. Mack's time with DeBoer extends to Washington. Russell signed as a five-star prospect, as one of the first high-profile prospects to pledge to DeBoer after Alabama hired him to replace Saban. Russell’s talent “speaks for itself,” DeBoer says.
What’ll tip the scales? As DeBoer tells it, the quarterback who’ll win this competition will be the one who provides big-play ability and also ball security.
“There’s a fine line between a guy who can attack and be aggressive and make big plays," DeBoer said, "and also balance that with risk-reward and not having the big mistakes."
Fair enough, but a quarterback whose passes sizzle, so that you hear his talent, sounds appealing.
Kalen DeBoer reveals “the big question” facing his team
In Penix and Simpson, DeBoer coached first-round draft picks in two of the past three years. DeBoer's offensive acumen accelerated his career.
Defense, though, saved Alabama’s 2025 season and helped the Tide win seven of eight SEC games.
Ask DeBoer what he likes about this team, and he’ll likely begin his answer on defense.
In the secondary, everybody’s back.
“That’s exciting,” he says.
DeBoer saw the need to get bigger on the defensive line after Alabama got outmuscled in losses to Florida State and Indiana. Transfers Terrance Green (330 pounds) and Kedrick Bingley-Jones (320 pounds) supply some beef.
“I like the potential that exists,” on the defensive line, DeBoer said.
Alabama's stagnant ground game last season offered a stark reminder the program's heyday under Saban has faded into yesteryear. Fixing that run attack rates as a top priority.
“The big question,” DeBoer said, “is how much better can we be offensive line wise, as a whole, and in particular the run blocking?”
Those are the types of questions a third-year Alabama coach must begin to answer, if he wants to gain affection from a fanbase that can be best described as still on the fence.
Alabama football aches for a king. Can Kalen DeBoer wear crown?
DeBoer works a pressure-cooker job. Year 3 represents and up-or-down inflection point for his tenure. But, he’s not on the hot seat. His exorbitant buyout should tell you that.
And, still, there are miles between the hot seat and the king’s throne Saban once occupied, or that Kirby Smart built for himself at Georgia, or that Curt Cignetti swiftly ascended to at Indiana. DeBoer stands amid those many miles, not on the hot seat, but no king, either.
Alabama fans ache for a king.
“Until you experience being here at Alabama,” Byrne said, “there are very few, if any things, that prepare you for” the demands and scrutiny of the job.
DeBoer’s second season represented progress. Only the most ardent naysayers would deny it. He beat Smart for a second time, before losing the rematch in the SEC Championship. He swept rivals Tennessee, LSU and Auburn. He won a playoff game.
At programs like Alabama, though, coaches who’ve never won a national championship are only as good as their last game. In Alabama’s last game, Indiana defaced the elephant. That lingers in the zeitgeist.
Is it fair DeBoer didn’t earn more praise and affection for Alabama’s achievements in Year 2?
“When you say, is that fair? No,” Byrne says. “But, it’s reality, and you have to deal with reality.”
“Kalen,” Byrne adds, “is really steady-eddie.”
And, I’d add, he’s become increasingly aware of this job's realities.
“We have high expectations. That’s why I came here,” DeBoer said. “That’s what we signed up for. I remind the guys of that when the criticism comes: ‘Hey, this is part of it, and we got a choice, and we’re going to be better because of it.’”
He’s talking like a coach who chose Alabama, more than once. To be feted as king, he must rule like one.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's senior national college football columnist. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on X @btoppme