TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — More than a year after Kalen DeBoer replaced perhaps the greatest coach in college football history, his Alabama players don’t necessarily sense that he’s a different person.

But they sense a subtle difference as the second spring practice under DeBoer winds down this week.

“Coach DeBoer had his battles last year, replacing a legend like Coach [Nick] Saban in the middle of the transfer portal, and it was hard to implement everything the way he wanted,” said linebacker Deontae Lawson, a returning captain.

“It was kind of hard for him to come in and be the bad cop or whatever last year. He’s still laid back and still wants the players to lead, but his fingerprints are on everything now — and he’s made it known that you better be locked in.”

DeBoer flashed an easy smile when told of Lawson’s “bad cop” analogy.

“It was more that we were in retention mode,” DeBoer told ESPN on Monday. “I wouldn’t say we slacked off on any of the things that would be the standard of what we need to do and how you need to operate.

“But I do think there’s another level of an edge, a harder edge.”

The Crimson Tide missed the College Football Playoff in DeBoer’s first season. They finished 9-4 and were plagued with the type of inconsistency that isn’t uncommon when a coach takes over such a high-profile program. Alabama lost to Vanderbilt for the first time in 40 years, lost to rival Tennessee and lost to Michigan in a bowl game, but beat Georgia and LSU.

The most crushing blow for Alabama came in the next-to-last week of the regular season when the Crimson Tide were still in position to make the playoff. They went on the road and were blown out 24-3 by an Oklahoma team that was 5-5 and 1-5 in the conference.

“That’s not the standard here, and we all know it,” Lawson said. “But you go back and look at the way Coach DeBoer handled it. He wasn’t pointing the finger at anybody else. He took it all on himself, and I think what you see now is everybody has bought in. We’re one.”

DeBoer said this season, and the way he has evolved, aren’t unlike his second season at other coaching stops such as Washington and Fresno State.

“Your relationships are deeper,” DeBoer said. “You establish that harder edge because of the understanding of what we need to do to accomplish it, and now we have the experiences for the most part together, the staff and players.

“We’re more comfortable now calling each other out because our relationships are stronger, and we know that we all want the same thing. I feel like now we’re closer to having the alignment between staff and players and having the right people here. Everyone has an appreciation for what each other brings to the table.”

One of the things DeBoer did this offseason was bring back one of his most trusted colleagues, offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb, who was with the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks last season. They first coached together in 2007 at Sioux Falls. Grubb was DeBoer’s OC on the 2023 Washington team that lost in the national championship game.

As it happens, Saban, prior to his final season in 2023, tried to hire Grubb as his OC, but the coordinator elected to stay at Washington.

Two of the qualities Grubb hopes to bring to Alabama’s program are consistency and strength.

“You don’t play into the good too much and force yourself through the tough parts,” Grubb said. “Kalen is the same way, keeping it calm when it needs to be calm and being really, really strong when you’ve got to be strong.”

Receiver Germie Bernard, who played under DeBoer and Grubb when they were together at Washington before transferring to Alabama, said they always had answers for everything, no matter what the opposing defense threw at the Huskies.

“And really it’s the belief they instilled in you as a player and the way they played off each other, adding things, tweaking things, playing to what we did best,” Bernard said.

One of the big decisions that still needs to be made on offense won’t be finalized until later this summer. Ty Simpson, Austin Mack and Keelon Russell are competing for the starting quarterback job.

“I think we’ve got three really, really good quarterbacks, and I mean that,” Grubb said. “I don’t think anybody has separated. They’re all playing good, but they’re not playing great yet. You’re looking for the guy that’s going to be consistent, that can show up the same and make the same plays all the time.”

In an ideal world, Grubb would like to know who his quarterback is heading into the summer.

“But I wasn’t expecting that either. I wasn’t going into this thinking, ‘Oh, I bet by practice 11 this will be done,'” Grubb said. “I didn’t think that at all, and I didn’t think that because I thought all three of them were good players.”

Grubb said that the staff has charted every throw this spring and that Mack (162 reps) and Simpson (158 reps) have received most of the work in team drills.

At Washington, the coaching staff didn’t name a starter until Week 2 of preseason camp when Michael Penix Jr., a transfer from Indiana, beat out incumbent Dylan Morris.

“That was a little bit different than our situation here,” Grubb said. “Mike had started a lot of games. Dylan had started games. We had two guys that had Power 5 starting experience. So, yes, you would have loved for this guy to have grabbed it and run with it, but we’re just not there yet.”

SAN DIEGO — Cedric Dempsey, the former NCAA president who helped turn Arizona into a national power as athletic director before leading the national organization through key years of transition and growth, died Saturday in San Diego, the NCAA said. He was 92.

Dempsey was revered as an administrator on campus. His nine-year tenure as the NCAA’s leader included moving its headquarters and significant fiscal growth for the organization, including landmark television deals worth billions.

“Ced was instrumental in shaping the NCAA as it moved into the new century, overseeing a restructuring of the organization, and strengthening the foundation of college sports for years that followed his tenure,” current NCAA president Charlie Baker said in a statement released by the organization.

“His impact on the lives of student-athletes and administrators across the nation will be felt for years to come,” Baker said.

Dempsey oversaw the organization’s move from the Kansas City suburbs to Indianapolis in 1999 and helped reimagine how the governing body could work best in the 21st Century.

His most enduring legacy may be the role he played in creating television deals with ESPN and CBS that brought in $6.2 billion over an 11-year span.

Dempsey charmed his way through it all with a smile and wit that was lauded throughout the headquarters and the college sports world.

“Twenty-one years ago, Cedric painted a picture for me that I could one day be an athletic director,” current Arizona athletic director Desireé Reed-Francois said in a statement. “His guidance helped me see a calling I never knew could be possible. I am forever grateful for the impact he had on the trajectory of my career and on my life as a whole. He will be deeply missed by our family and by everyone in the University of Arizona community.”

Reed-Francois first met Dempsey when she was serving as an associate athletic director for Compliance and as the Senior Woman Administrator at Fresno State.

Dempsey’s hires in Tucson included coaches such as Lute Olson and Dick Tomey, who became iconic figures for Wildcats fans. During his 11-year tenure, Arizona State teams won five national team championships, 39 individual NCAA titles and 17 Pac-10 crowns.

He also served as the men’s basketball selection committee chairman in 1988-89.

Dempsey grew up in Equality, Illinois, and went on to play football, basketball and baseball at Albion College in Michigan. From 1959-62, he served as the men’s basketball and cross country coach at his alma mater before stepping back in 1963 to become an assistant basketball coach.

In 1965, he started a 46-year career in administration by becoming an associate athletic director also at Albion. He left there to be the athletic director at Pacific in California, before stints at San Diego State and Houston before moving to Arizona in 1983.

Dempsey left Arizona in 1994 to become the sixth executive director/president in NCAA history, and it was there he became a national figure.

“I think the NCAA is where it is today because of Ced,” former NCAA executive committee chairman Bob Lawless said when Dempsey announced he was retiring in January 2002. “He has been a real treasure for the NCAA.”

He also served as commissioner of the All-American Football League from 2007-10 and battled cancer three times. Dempsey is a member of multiple Halls of Fame and is survived by his wife, June, and two children.

BYU landed the program’s highest-ranked pledge since at least 2006 on Monday when four-star tight end Brock Harris, ESPN’s No. 33 overall recruit and the No. 1 player in the state of Utah, announced his commitment to coach Kalani Sitake and the Cougars.

Harris, a 6-foot-7, 240-pound prospect from Saint George, Utah, is ESPN’s fourth-ranked tight end in the 2026 class. He chose BYU over Michigan, Georgia, Miami, Oregon and Utah following multiple trips to all six schools over the past year prior to Harris’ announcement at Pine View (Utah) High School on Monday afternoon. He lands with the Cougars as the lone ESPN 300 pledge among five prospects currently committed to the program’s 2026 class.

The son of a former BYU baseball player, Harris attracted heavy Power 4 interest and took an extensive number of visits throughout his process — most recently to Michigan in late March — before opting to remain in his home state with BYU.

Harris previously told ESPN that his connection with the program’s coaching staff began after he first attended a BYU prospect camp in the eighth grade. Those ties were ultimately strong enough for the Cougars to fend off national powers like Georgia, Oregon and Michigan for the coveted tight end recruit who grew up roughly 260 miles southwest of campus.

A standout route runner for his size, Harris projects to be a versatile hybrid tight end at the college level, equipped with sharp blocking ability but also elite pass-catching traits that could allow him to become a dangerous downfield target. Harris, who has hauled in 118 passes for 1,678 yards and 21 touchdowns across three varsity seasons, will join a thin and unseasoned BYU tight ends room in 2026 with Cougars tight ends Carsen Ryan and Ethan Erickson both out of eligibility following the 2025 season.

Harris will become BYU’s highest-ranked high school addition in the ESPN recruiting era (since 2006) and only the program’s seventh top 300 pledge in that span if he signs with the Cougars later this year. He joins three-star tight Ty Goettsche, cornerback Justice Brathwaite and a pair of in-state prospects in quarterback Kaneal Sweetwyne and outside linebacker Penisimani Takitaki among the early commits to BYU’s upcoming recruiting class.

Harris is now the second pledge among the eight tight ends ranked inside ESPN’s top 150 prospect in 2026, joining five-star Oregon pledge Kendre’ Harrison (No. 11 in the ESPN 300), who committed to the Ducks this past November.

After missing out on Harris, Georgia remains heavily involved in the recruitments of five-star tight end Kaiden Prothro (No. 19) and Mark Bowman (No. 24). Oregon is another program in the mix for Bowman, who reclassified from the 2027 cycle earlier this year, and could still rejoin the race for Ian Premer (No. 60). Former Texas A&M pledge Xavier Tiller (No. 83) is set for official visits later this spring with Alabama, Auburn, Florida State and USC. Four-star tight end Mack Sutter (No. 138) has narrowed his recruitment to Alabama, Illinois, Ohio State, Ole Miss and Penn State and will take officials with each program from April 11 to June 20.