How do you replace a legend? Kalen DeBoer is bringing his own style to Alabama

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Kalen DeBoer is taking over for a legend, but he’s won plenty at all of his previous coaching stops. (John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports)

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Kalen DeBoer taps on the glass coffee table before him.

“This used to have rings on it, didn’t it?” he asks.

Few items in Nick Saban’s former office at Alabama were more memorable than that coffee table — the centerpiece of a sitting area adjacent to his expansive wooden desk, the resting place for dozens of bowl and championship rings, the gilded keepsakes stacked atop one another in their velvet jewelry boxes to form the ingredients for the sport’s best recruiting pitch.

Nestled between a pair of cushioned arm chairs and a brown leather couch, the varnished wooden coffee table displayed nearly two decades of history, artifacts from perhaps the greatest dynasty that college football has ever seen — a dominant stretch of time that featured 201 victories, nine SEC titles and six national championships.

The coffee table is now gone, replaced with an unoccupied glass version. The rings are also absent. So too is Saban’s famous hat rack, his family photos, autographed game footballs, framed pictures from White House trips, baseball caps and trophies.

For the most part, the office of the head coach at Alabama is mostly barren. It was left this way by its former coach and kept this way by its current coach in preparation for a renovation this spring of a space that is clearly dated, its wooden walls and flooring the products of yesteryear.

In Tuscaloosa, change is indeed here.

Saban, fiery, severe and ruthlessly demanding, is no longer in charge of Alabama football. A few days before the team’s spring game, a very different leader walks these halls: DeBoer, gentle, friendly and apologetically welcoming.

The two are, perhaps, polar opposites. A hardened…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/how-do-you-replace-a-legend-kalen-deboer-is-bringing-his-own-style-to-alabama-140156433.html

Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2024-04-11 14:01:56

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