When the spring transfer portal closed late April, Alabama stood alone, or at least in very rare company: No Crimson Tide player declared for the portal during its spring period.
For those who have followed the rocket-powered roller coaster that is college football roster management over the past few years, keeping a roster together – even if it turns out to be just for a few months – has become by far the exception to the chaos that rules the sport.
Whether Kalen DeBoer ultimately succeeds as Alabama’s coach will depend on more than just keeping his players out of the portal. But regardless of the eventual outcome, DeBoer should feel free to chalk this up as in important short-term win, because that’s exactly what it is.
Cynics might suggest no players declared for the portal because they find modern UA program life in Tuscaloosa to be easy. But the modern landscape of college football doesn’t prioritize hard or easy; it prioritizes money. Players basically have five years to maximize what they can earn from the NIL pipeline before the NFL swoops in and delivers a hard dose of reality to most. If today’s players don’t see a fairly straight and direct path to playing time, they’re more likely to go find it elsewhere than to stick around and compete.
But yet, no Alabama player declared from the transfer portal during the spring period. It isn’t that Alabama doesn’t have logjams at several spots, because it does. It’s not that no other teams covet Alabama players, because they certainly do. Depending on what one believes – and given the craziness of recent seasons, there’s no reason not to believe it – there’s a story out there that one of Alabama’s backup offensive linemen was offered a high-six or even low-seven-figure package to jump during last fall’s portal; he chose not to.
That leads us to the question posed in the headline: Kalen DeBoer is certainly building something in Tuscaloosa. What is it, though?
Football teams are built on two foundations simultaneously, with championship programs finding a way to tie the two together fairly early in the process. One foundation is the program culture, while the other is the nuts and bolts of strategy, coaching and other things that help mold the actual on-field product.
Given DeBoer’s ability to hold onto the majority of the roster in the post-Nick Saban transition, and in 2025 to hold on to all of the roster after spring football ended, Alabama fans should feel good about at least one pillar of the program, and that’s the culture.
It would have been easy for players, especially any that considered former QB Jalen Milroe the face of the program and the leader of the team, to walk away from Alabama after Milroe ended his eligibility and declared for the NFL Draft. It would have been easier still for certain players at certain positions where there is a lot of depth – think running back, inside linebacker or wide receiver – to try their fortunes at another school.
Given that it didn’t happen, the inference is that the culture DeBoer is preaching is actually connecting. And that’s an important first step for Alabama if the Crimson Tide wants to get back to the College Football Playoff.
As to what the team will actually look like, that’s a separate – and perhaps, more interesting – question, or set of questions. As analysts crafted the postmortem for the 2024 season, there were plenty of reasons Alabama failed to live up to expectations. Simply changing offensive and defensive systems, which always – always – is tough in the SEC, proved to be a bit of a trap that Alabama couldn’t avoid. But there were plenty of other things that went into it: Milroe’s erratic quarterback play, the lack of receiving threats beyond Ryan Williams and Germie Bernard, a run defense that was too porous too often, and perhaps the most troubling – a running game that didn’t strike fear into anyone, except on a handful of plays each game when Milroe would take off.
Those looking to parse the technical are probably focused here, because DeBoer’s Washington teams have some history behind them. During DeBoer’s final season at UW, Mississippi State transfer RB Dillon Johnson ran for 1,195 yards. However, the Husky team as a whole finished 104th as a team in rushing. That kind of dichotomy is hard to figure. Johnson was a spare part in Starkville but garnered NFL attention at Washington and ended up spending some time on the Carolina Panthers’ practice squad. Obviously, Washington did something right with Johnson in the time they had him.
However, a ranking of 104th in rushing offense is problematic. In the SEC, teams that rank in the triple digits rarely find success. Alabama was 47th in rushing offense last year under DeBoer, but may have been less effective than Washington was as it funneled its entire rushing game through Johnson. Neither Jam Miller nor Justice Haynes proved to be a consistent threat for Alabama in 2024. In Washington’s case, it would be fair to say that successful teams find a way to involve their best players, and Washington’s best player was QB Michael Penix – not the backup running backs.
There is plenty that Alabama has to fix coming off a ho-hum 2024 season. Alabama has to run the ball better, but also has to stop the running games of conference teams more effectively. It needs more consistency from not just the quarterback position, although quarterback is certainly at the top of the list. The tight ends, the offensive line, the running backs and the defensive ends all could stand to take a step forward, or multiple steps forward.
It’s in Alabama’s best interest for Kalen DeBoer to continue to take steps forward as a head coach, and for the Alabama program to follow. Early signs are that the culture is on the right track. Now it’s time to see what grows in the sunlight of that culture.
Follow Jess Nicholas on X at @TideFansJessN