"It’s pretty fun to experience": When Kalen DeBoer shared his feelings about SEC being the standard after Alabama move

Kalen DeBoer not only took over from a legendary head coach but also did so in the heart of SEC country. When the Alabama Crimson Tide head coach came in, he got to experience the different college football culture in the Southeast.

In an appearance on “The Joel Klatt Show” from July 2024, the former Washington Huskies head coach talked about his first impressions of Alabama. He highlighted how college football is enjoyed in the region.

“It’s pretty fun to experience. When you really think about the stadium, 100,000 plus and where all these people are coming to, and what their Saturdays or what their whole weekends look like and how it surrounds football, it’s pretty amazing,” Kalen DeBoer said (34:50 onwards).

One of the challenges for DeBoer heading into the 2024 season was adjusting to football in Alabama after arriving as an outsider.

DeBoer had to make adjustments in his career before. He worked at Fresno State before moving to Washington, where he had to learn about a different program.

“Going back to Fresno State was easy because I understood the traditions and had seen it for two years under coach Jeff Tedford there, who was an alum himself. So you kind of had a little bit of the recipe.

“But Washington was different. That was a new area, a new territory. really hadn’t spent that much time in Seattle. So embracing everything that the program was about is very similar to here,” Kalen DeBoer said.

The coach took over at Alabama last year, replacing the legendary Nick Saban. However, not everything went as DeBoer expected. The Crimson Tide lost a couple of games against unranked teams and ended up missing out on the College Football Playoff.

Kalen DeBoer shared his first talk with Nick Saban

Before the job was offered to Kalen DeBoer, the former Washington coach reached out to Nick Saban. DeBoer opened up to Joel Klatt about that first conversation.

“The cool connection there was Don James. And I could really get the sense the sense that this was the first time coach and I ever talked and man, just hearing him talk about that relationship, what that meant to him and the things that he learned even during that time. And I know what Don meant to Washington,” Kalen DeBoer said.

Don James was the Washington head coach from 1975 to 1992 and led the Huskies to the national title in 1991. So as DeBoer said, it was a particular way to kick off their relationship.