DeBoer vows ‘100% access’ for Saban in future
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Alex Scarborough, ESPN Staff Writer
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — University of Alabama president Stuart Bell marked a “new chapter in the Crimson Tide football program” Saturday by introducing its 28th head coach: Kalen DeBoer, the Associated Press Coach of the Year who this past season led Washington to a berth in the College Football Playoff National Championship game.
But Bell first had to acknowledge the outgoing coach, Nick Saban, who won the AP award twice — to go along with six national championships — during his 17 seasons at Alabama.
“Your legacy will forever be interwoven with the fabric of the university,” Bell said of Saban, arguably the greatest college football coach of all time with seven national titles (including one with LSU) and a record of 307-88-1.
A full-throated ovation interrupted Bell’s speech for a moment.
Saban’s presence was felt throughout the afternoon’s festivities. The five-time SEC Coach of the Year wore a crimson sports coat and sat in the front row, to athletic director Greg Byrne’s left as he spoke inside Bryant-Denny Stadium. Before listing DeBoer’s credentials and talking through the hiring process, Byrne thanked Saban and alluded to a future celebration for him and his wife, Terry.
Beyond the wall of glass behind the dais, a statue of Saban stood along the walk of champions — a testament to the coach’s greatness as well as the expectations awaiting his successor.
“When I look at places I want to be, it’s about winning championships,” DeBoer said. “That’s the expectation, and [I] accept [that] as a privilege to try to uphold.”
DeBoer credited Saban for laying a strong foundation, calling him “the best in the business to ever do it.”
“100 percent access, OK?” he said of Saban’s involvement moving forward. “I’d be a fool if that wasn’t the case.”
DeBoer, 49, grew up in South Dakota and cut his teeth in the lower rungs of college football in the NAIA before winning back-to-back Pac-12 Coach of the Year awards at Washington. He spoke to Saban for the first time Friday. On Saturday morning, he said he called the coach again.
The last time DeBoer was in Bryant-Denny Stadium was in 2017, when he was offensive coordinator at Fresno State. He joked of the 41-10 loss to Alabama, “It wasn’t one that I want to remember.”
But three years later, DeBoer was the head coach at Fresno State. It was then, compiling a 12-6 record in two seasons, that Byrne said the coach caught his attention.
Byrne said he came to Alabama seven years ago as AD knowing that it was his job to facilitate Saban’s tenure for as long as he wanted to remain the coach, while also preparing for his eventual retirement. Byrne said he kept in close contact with Saban during the season, meeting every Sunday, and wasn’t surprised when he called it quits.
“Over time, I was always preparing, hoping I’d never have to execute the plan,” Byrne said.
Byrne was on a flight in search of Saban’s replacement the same evening the coach announced he was stepping down. Byrne told the team he’d have a new coach named within 72 hours. It wound up taking only 49.
Byrne slept nine hours over three nights, calling on Saban for his guidance multiple times. Not utilizing Saban, Byrne said, would have been “irresponsible.”
“Shame on me if I didn’t want to do that,” he added.
Two of Saban’s former players stood to the side of the podium Saturday as DeBoer was introduced: former linebacker Christian Miller and former defensive back Ha Ha Clinton-Dix.
DeBoer, who has a 104-12 record, has never coached in the SEC. He acknowledged his lack of familiarity with the conference and the region but said he understood “there needs to be some SEC ties [on staff] that can bridge the gap.”
So far, no assistant coaches or staff members have been named.
Given the ability of players to leave via the transfer portal, DeBoer and Byrne said they understood the sense of urgency to win over the current roster.
DeBoer met with the team shortly after arriving in Tuscaloosa on Friday night.
“I want you to put yourself in those guys’ shoes,” DeBoer said. “A legendary coach that they came to play for [is gone], and now what’s next?”
DeBoer said he has had multiple meetings with players, both individually and with the team leaders.
“I know how badly they want to continue the tradition and how they want to do it the right way,” DeBoer said. “And them getting to know me in the last few hours has been a blast.
“I can’t wait for the journey that lies ahead.”
Fearing he’d get emotional, DeBoer said he held off thanking his former players at Washington until the end of his speech. And right on cue, he teared up.
“It’s a special place to me, it really is,” he said. “This was one of the few places, maybe the only place, that I would have ever left for.”
Speaking to reporters after the news conference, Byrne said he understood the narrative that no one would want to follow a legend like Saban. If he was a writer, he said, he’d probably offer the same opinion.
“But as I thought about it over the years, one of the things I thought about was, you better have somebody that’s comfortable in their own skin and that looks at this as a challenge and as an opportunity, not as a detriment,” he said. “And almost immediately, for Coach DeBoer and [his wife] Nicole, too … they saw this as a wonderful opportunity.”
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Ryan S. Clark
Many of Mikko Rantanen’s greatest moments have come in a Colorado Avalanche sweater. It’s just that the most defining moment of his career came at their expense.
It wasn’t enough that the Dallas Stars were trailing by two goals. It was also the fact that Rantanen scored a hat trick in a string of four unanswered goals that saw his current team, the host Stars, eliminate his old team, the Avalanche, in a 4-2 win Saturday in Game 7 of the Western Conference quarterfinals at the American Airlines Center.
“Obviously, the feeling was incredible to win a series,” Rantanen said in his postgame media availability. “This series was not exactly what I expected. I expected a seven-game series, even before Game 1. The ups and downs in the series. … Belief was there with the group the whole time. Obviously, I was able to make a pay to get the first one and the crowd started to roll.”
The Stars, attempting to reach the conference finals a third straight time, will advance to the semifinal round in which they will await the winner of series featuring the St. Louis Blues and Winnipeg Jets. That encounter will be decided Sunday in Game 7 in Winnipeg.
Soon, the Stars’ collective focus will shift to another Central Division foe. But for now? The attention before, during, and after the game, was on Rantanen.
Part of what made the Avalanche-Stars series arguably the most intriguing first-round series in either conference was the fact it placed two 100-point teams that are in championship window against each other. But, it also came with several subplots with the notable being the team that traded quite a bit to land Rantanen — with the hope he could win them a Stanley Cup now — needed him to defeat the team that he won a championship with back in 2022.
With one assist through the first four games, there was a discussion about if the Stars could manage to win with a sputtering Rantanen on top of the fact they were already without two of their best players in defenseman Miro Heiskanen and forward Jason Robertson.
Rantanen responded with a three-point performance in Game 5, and a four-point performance in Game 6 only to then have a hand in each goal on Saturday. His first goal came on the power-play with 12:12 remaining in the third period when he found enough space to fire a wrist shot that beat MacKenzie Blackwood.
Then came the game-tying goal and the significance it carried. The Stars went on the power play went Avalanche forward Jack Drury was called for holding. Drury part of the trade package the Carolina Hurricanes used to get Rantanen in late January before they would trade him to the Stars.
Drury’s penalty opened the door for Rantanen to score a game-tying goal that might be one of, if not, his signature salvo. Rantanen skated into the Avalanche zone in a 1-on-3 before he split two players before going around the net for a wrap-around goal that went off the skate of Samuel Girard with 6:14 left.
Three minutes later, the Stars received another power-play opportunity that saw Rantanen along with another former Avalanche forward in Matt Duchene work together to find Wyatt Johnston for the game-winning goal.
In the final minute, the Avalanche pulled Blackwood in the attempt to grab a late goal and force over time. Instead? Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger withstood a barrage that officially ended when Stars forward Tyler Seguin got the puck out of the zone only for Rantanen to skate in on an open net for the hat trick with three seconds left.
“I couldn’t care less who scored for them, I really couldn’t,” Avalanche captain and left winger Gabriel Landeskog said when asked about what it was like to watch Rantanen score a hat trick. “Mikko is one of my best friends and I love him, but I couldn’t care if he scored or if somebody else scored.”
For eight full seasons, Rantanen was part of a homegrown movement that saw the Avalanche go from finishing with what was then the worst record in the salary cap era back in 2016-17 to become a perennial favorite to win the Stanley Cup, which did they did in 2023, while also becoming a model for the need to build through the draft.
Building through stars such as Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon, Landeskog and Rantanen allowed the Avalanche to become a success. As did the moves they made to get other key figures like Valeri Nichushkin and Devon Toews.
Like all teams in a championship window, the Avs were facing the prospect of possibly making a difficult decision. They had yet to agree to a new contract with Rantanen, who was a pending unrestricted free agent. Then, came the blockbuster trade that few throughout the league saw coming.
The Avalanche traded Rantanen in a three-team trade that saw them get Martin Necas and Drury along with two draft picks. Rantanen’s time with the Carolina Hurricanes was limited to just two goals and six points in 13 games.
Despite the fact the Hurricanes are also among that cadre of championship contenders, Rantanen struggled to find cohesion in Raleigh. Rather than run the risk of watching leave for nothing in free agency, the Hurricanes put out feelers to a few teams with the Stars being one of them.
A long-time admirer of Rantanen, the Stars packaged two first-round picks, three second-round picks and former prized prospect Logan Stankoven to get Rantanen. They then signed him to an eight-year contract worth $12 million annually.
“It’s two things: It’s where our team’s at, and it’s Mikko Rantanen,” Stars general manager Jim Nill told ESPN back in March.
Rantanen finished the regular season with five goals and 18 points in 20 games prior to the showdown with his former team.
Not only did Rantanen’s hat trick condemn his former team to their second first-round exit since winning the Stanley Cup, but it continued a theme of former Avalanche eliminating their previous employers.
The Avalanche and Stars faced each other in last season’s Western Conference semifinal that saw Duchene, a former Colorado first-round pick, score the game-winning goal.
A year later, it was another former Avalanche first-round pick who delivered the devastating blow.
“It seems pretty fitting,” Johnston said about Rantanen. “Obviously, we want to win for each other and I think that goes a little extra when it’s a guy like that who is such a big part of our team and was there for a long time and everyone knows the trade that went on. It’s so awesome. We’re so happy as a group for him.”
As if Rantanen scoring a hat trick in a four-goal comeback wasn’t enough, there’s also the fact that this is now the ninth consecutive Game 7 that Stars coach Peter DeBoer has won his career.
DeBoer’s nine wins in Game 7s broke a tie with Darryl Sutter for the most in NHL history. It was also DeBoer’s third game 7 wins with the Stars.
“I felt something was going to happen,” DeBoer said. “But I could not have predicted that.”
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