Kalen DeBoer must fight to keep Alabama from becoming just another job

If you want to laugh, Google the phrase “Alabama recruits itself” and consider how wrong the past three days have proven that statement. In an era when every program must constantly recruit every player on its roster, the regime change in Tuscaloosa has driven home the hard truth that no program, no stadium, no history, no infrastructure can build a national champion. Only people can.

And when those people change, everything else changes too.

On3’s Hayes Fawcett reported Wednesday that Alabama freshman defensive back Caleb Downs plans to enter the transfer portal. Whether this is out of a desire to play somewhere else or a negotiating tactic to get a better deal from Alabama’s collective remains to be seen. Anyone who barely passed high school economics understands why Downs should enter the portal. The market for his services is booming. He’s a future early-round draft pick with at least two years of college eligibility remaining. Every program needs someone like him regardless of who is on the current roster, and Downs already is better than everyone in the secondary for at least 95 percent of FBS schools. He’d be crazy not to test the market.

Update: Since this column was originally published, Fawcett reported that Alabama freshman offensive tackle Kadyn Proctor intends to enter the transfer portal. Like Downs, Proctor was the nation’s No. 1 recruit at his position. Like Downs, Proctor was an immediate starter. Proctor’s reasons for entering the portal would be the same reasons as Downs.

But would Downs and Proctor be testing the portal if Nick Saban still coached Alabama? No. We know this because they didn’t enter the portal when it was open following Alabama’s final game. They decided to toss their names in when the portal re-opened for Alabama players following Saban’s departure.

This, and the domino effect caused by Saban’s retirement, have proven two things that will remain true for as long as the current era of college football lasts.

• There are no destination jobs.
  
• Your program is only as good as your most recent head coach hire.

Alabama doesn’t recruit itself. Anyone who has followed recruiting in the SEC for any length of time knows that. New Crimson Tide coach Kalen DeBoer will have to fight like hell for every player he signs, because Auburn, Georgia, LSU, Tennessee, Texas A&M and now Oklahoma and Texas will want those players too. And now, thanks to the gutting of transfer rules that were always bound to get wiped out in court someday, DeBoer will have to fight like hell for every player he inherited.

Most of those players didn’t come to play for Alabama. They didn’t care how many national titles the Crimson Tide claimed or how glorious Bryant-Denny Stadium is or how beautiful it sounds when those first strains of Skynyrd fire up a half-hour before each game. Bear Bryant is just a statue to them. They came to play for Nick Saban, who also has a statue but who to them was a very real person who sat in their living rooms and told them he could make them first-rounders just like Quinnen Williams or Jonathan Allen or Devonta Smith.

Saban plans to stay around the program, which should help some. But he won’t coach these players day-to-day. The coaches from those other schools are going to tell those players that from now on Saban might as well be just another statue. 

Five years ago, a coach replacing a successful outgoing coach could clamp on to that guy’s roster. The new coach could try to keep the infrastructure together. And that provided a massive head start.  It turns out the last time that happened was Urban Meyer’s handoff to Ryan Day at Ohio State. Meyer gifted Day with an incredible roster, and Day didn’t have to defend that roster because all those future NFL players weren’t going to sit out a season just to transfer. And besides, why would they want to go? Each school could only offer tuition, room and board.

Multiple state legislatures retired that brand of socialism in 2021. Now that players can engage in the same brand of capitalism their coaches can, those coaches have to earn those millions. 

Because DeBoer left Washington to replace Saban, Jedd Fisch now will double his salary by leaving Arizona for Washington. Now Fisch must defend a roster that played in a national title game nine days ago from poachers. In the intervening days between DeBoer’s departure and Fisch’s hiring, Washington players poured into the portal.

Will this be as difficult as the roster rebuild Fisch faced when hired by Arizona in December 2020? Probably not, but it’s telling how much has changed in college football that Fisch’s first offseason as Washington’s head coach will feel more like his first offseason as Arizona’s head coach than Day’s first offseason as Ohio State’s head coach.

Fisch will have to earn his millions the way DeBoer did. Two years ago, DeBoer took over a team that had just gone 4-8. He kept key pieces of the roster together, and he added important ones — QB Michael Penix Jr., for example — through the portal. 

Tuesday, Fisch was asked if he (unlike DeBoer) plans to stay long-term. This is a silly question in this era — and even sillier because Fisch just left Arizona for the same reasons DeBoer left Washington — and Washington athletic director Troy Dannen hopped in after Fisch answered and provided a dose of reality.

“Our collective job — all of us, no matter what role we have in the program in the university in the community — is to make U-Dub aspirational,” Dannen said. “That’s true with faculty. That’s true with researchers. It’s true with students. It’s true with coaches. It’s true with ADs. It’s true with our athletes. We want this to be aspirational in every way, and the best should seek us out. We don’t control anyone’s lives and what they choose to do in their lives.”

This is a nice way of saying that it’s loser thinking to seek out someone who will be so mediocre that no one wants to hire them away. Plus, in college football, that just means the AD will have to fire that coach and pay a buyout.

“The best we can do is make sure that this place remains a destination location in everything we do,” Dannen said. “I told coach — we had this exact conversation during the process. And I said I want this to be such a good job that you don’t want to leave. Hey, maybe the Seahawks call, right? And you go across town.”

That last sentence makes the point. If Fisch has three successful years and then becomes the Seahawks coach, everyone who isn’t a Washington fan would understand. We’re two years removed from coaches leaving Oklahoma and Notre Dame for other college jobs. The current head coach at Ohio State is winning at impressive clip, yet a significant portion of the fanbase would love if he just took another job. No matter how hard Washington or any other school tries to make itself a destination, there always could be something else. 

Washington’s football program will only be as good as Fisch is, so Washington fans had better hope he wins so much that everyone wants to hire him away.

Alabama’s football program will only be as good as DeBoer is. It doesn’t matter what Nick Saban did. It doesn’t matter what Bear Bryant did. The only way to keep the empire intact is to defend it tooth and nail. Those who forget Mike Shula are doomed to repeat him.

If you’re not an Alabama or a Washington fan and you read through this column and thought “This is exactly what’s wrong with college football, and all this new stuff is ruining the sport,” then you’ve missed the point entirely.

Because if DeBoer and Fisch can’t live up to the lofty standards they’ve inherited, guess who benefits? Your team.

As long as it has the right coach.

Does it?