Kalen DeBoer will have to make a lot of roster changes before his first season at Alabama.Numerous Alabama players have entered the transfer portal in the days following Nick Saban’s retirement last week.
Five-star freshmen Julian Sayin and Kadyn Proctor became some of the latest Crimson Tide players to enter the transfer portal on Wednesday. Downs started right away at safety and led the team in tackles in 2023, and Proctor started at left tackle.
On Friday, ESPN reported that 2024 five-star quarterback Julian Sayin planned to enter the transfer portal.
These three players were seen as building blocks for the first two seasons of DeBoer’s tenure.
Instead, they could go play in their home state (Georgia for Downs, Iowa for Proctor) and leave huge holes on Alabama’s roster.
Some turnover was inevitable after Saban’s surprising retirement.
The seven-time national champion kept the possibility of retirement a secret until news broke Jan. 10 that he would be retiring after 17 seasons with the Crimson Tide.
Saban is one of the greatest recruiters of all time. He brought five-star talent to Tuscaloosa in droves after replacing Mike Shula and running a top-five recruiting class during his time as coach. Before retiring, Saban secured the third-largest recruiting class in the nation, according to Rivals, as Alabama signed one five-star recruit and eighteen four-star recruits in the Class of 2024. DeBoer has yet to this kind of recruiting success. Fresno State isn’t exactly a recruiting hotbed,
and he was Washington’s head coach for just two seasons before getting the Alabama job. But DeBoer’s teams almost always win.
The Huskies went 25-3 in his two seasons in Seattle, and his teams are 104-12 overall if you include his 67-3 record at NAIA Sioux Falls from 2005-09.
It is reasonable to believe that it is easier for a coach who is a consistent winner to become a good recruiter than for a strong recruiter to turn recruiting success into victories.
But DeBoer will still have a lot of recruiting to do before he has a chance to win a game at Alabama.
