Over the six months since Kalen DeBoer landed the biggest job in college football, Alabama's first-year coach has taken a common theme within him onto the recruiting trail, a message aimed at weaving together the Crimson Tide's storied past and its transformational present.
Markus Cook heard the pitch when DeBoer and his staff began recruiting 2025 offensive tackle commit Micah DeBose, the No. 72 player in the ESPN 300, out of Vigor High School in Prichard, Alabama.
"One of the things DeBoer says to recruits and to families is, 'I don't want to change a culture of things that worked,'" Cook, who began coaching DeBose as an eighth-grader, said. "He doesn't want to take away traditions that have been here for 25 years. He just wants to enhance it and put his twist on it."
Music at practice. Fresh drills. A different, more laid back environment from the one Nick Saban oversaw across 17 years in Tuscaloosa before he retired in January.
While there are some new things at Bama, the 49-year-old DeBoer has chosen to maintain certain Saban-era elements in his early months at Alabama, too. Among the most critical: high-level success with elite recruits.