Alabama HC DeBoer has been learning from Saban all along

Kalen DeBoer will have Nick Saban as a consigliere of sorts as he navigates his first season as head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Saban is retired, of course, but he’s going to be around as a consultant for Alabama football — someone DeBoer can bend the ear of when the going gets tough.

DeBoer couldn’t ask for a better resource in his first season in Tuscaloosa, but the 49-year-old head coach has, in fact, been learning from Saban all along. Even back to his time as the head coach of Sioux Falls, DeBoer has been gleaning information and coaching wisdom from Saban from afar.

Many coaches have drawn inspiration from Saban’s Alabama dynasty, in fact.

“Well it’s always been what we refer to as the standard,” DeBoer said of Alabama in a recent conversation with former Crimson Tide quarterback turn ESPN analyst, Greg McElroy (h/t On3). “The way it’s done, being first class in all those areas, not just on the field but off the field. It’s what I’ve always seen from afar, I’ve always admired just everything about the program.”

DeBoer was so hungry for Saban’s coaching expertise that he’d even steal the seven-time national champion’s work from time to time.

“And the recent 15 to 20 years under coach Saban there, I stole a lot of things,” DeBoer went on to say. “It could be the Xs and Os of an offensive or defensive play or just kind of those quotes, those sayings, those things that get uploaded to social media all the time that you take from that you can use with your own football team.”

DeBoer now has a chance to drink from the fount of wisdom itself, and one imagines he’s going to take full advantage of being able to bend Saban’s ear — especially now that he’s inherited Saban’s kingdom.