"Would’ve been top 8 in country": Washington AD spills the beans on failed attempt to keep Kalen DeBoer from $100M Alabama temptation

Washington Huskies athletic director Troy Dannen opened up on the offer to try to keep Kalen DeBoer as their head coach. DeBoer led the Huskies to a 14-1 record and won the Pac-12 championship. In the national championship, Washington lost to the Michigan Wolverines.

After Washington lost in the national championship and Alabama head coach Nick Saban retired, the Crimson Tide went out and hired DeBoer. Recently, Dannen revealed that Washington's final offer was to make DeBoer a top-eight highest-paid head coach in college football.

"Put a package in the table to Kalen DeBoer for $8.7M/yr in November, which would’ve been 15th in country and 6th in Big10. Jan offer was $9.4M/yr , which would’ve been top 8 in country," Dannen said (according to Downtown Bellevue on X).

With DeBoer turning down $9.4 million a year with Washington, he likely got higher at Alabama. Currently, his salary with the Crimson Tide hasn't been revealed. According to reports, Alabama offered him a package worth over $100 million, including his $12 million buyout from Washington.

After DeBoer left Washington, Dannen and the Huskies quickly hired Jedd Fisch as their new head coach.

Dannen thought Kalen DeBoer would leave

Troy Dannen revealed he had contract negotiations with Kalen DeBoer during the year, but the coach didn't agree to any of them. Dannen said he thought DeBoer might move on in the future but didn't think it would be the year until the Alabama job came up.

“The fact that we couldn’t get it signed led me to believe that there might be uncertainty down the line,” Dannen said to Seattle Sports. “Frankly, I’d been doing due diligence really over the last month and maybe five weeks just in case this eventuality came.”

“I’m certainly not in a position to foresee Nick Saban retiring, but you just never know what was coming,” Dannen added. “But there was a reason we couldn’t get it signed, and it wasn’t because of what the contract looked like. So that inkling is there, and it did give me a long runway to do a lot of due diligence along the way.”

Troy Dannen believes Kalen DeBoer wanted a chance to coach a premier program in Alabama, so money wasn't the issue for him.