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Success against ranked teams. Wins against your rival. Conference championships. Proven ability to reach the College Football Playoff, beat some of the best teams in the Bowl Subdivision and compete for national championships.
Check, check, check, check.
A winning track record across multiple stops as a head coach. A reputation for inventiveness and innovation in your area of expertise − in this case, on the offensive side of the ball. The ability to identify and develop skill talent.
Check, check and check again.
In many ways, Kalen DeBoer hits the mark for Alabama. Within days of Nick Saban’s retirement, the university landed one of the hottest names in the profession and a coach fresh off one of the most incredibly quick and jaw-dropping turnarounds in recent Power Five history.
But there are few home-run hires in college football. While the positives seemingly outweigh the possible negatives, the DeBoer hire comes with question marks, concerns and the possibility of being engulfed by the miles-wide shadow Saban will continue to cast over the program for years to come.
In the short and long term, DeBoer’s tenure in Tuscaloosa will be defined by these four unanswered questions:
Can DeBoer keep Alabama’s recruiting machine rolling?
Beginning with his first full recruiting cycle in 2008, Alabama’s lowest-rated signing class under Saban came in 2010, when the Crimson Tide ranked fifth nationally. In the end, the difference was always Saban; still, even he’d agree that talent evaluation and development was a foundational part of his program’s historic run.
The onus will be on DeBoer to prove he can recruit at a similar level. That’s the biggest question facing his day-one tenure: Can he maintain the conveyer belt of talent that has juiced Alabama’s roster for a generation?
It doesn’t make too much sense to lean…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/kalen-deboer-succeed-alabama-four-113545359.html
Author : USA TODAY Sports
Publish date : 2024-01-15 11:35:45
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