Saturday’s A-Day at Bryant-Denny Stadium heralded the start of a new era for Alabama’s football program. For the first time in over two decades, famed head coach Nick Saban will not be on the Crimson Tide sidelines. Instead, it will be Kalen DeBoer, the former Washington Huskies head coach who turned his team’s College Football Playoff appearance last year into probably the most coveted coaching position in college football. DeBoer will become the 28th head coach in program history, but there will be no transition time. Championship expectations are just part of the job in Tuscaloosa, but thankfully for DeBoer, he has a fantastic roster to work with this season.
Jalen Milroe, the Alabama football team’s quarterback, began last year as an inexperienced starter but blossomed into one of the most dynamic players in the country by the end of the season. Milroe placed sixth in the Heisman Trophy vote and was awarded SEC Championship Game MVP for Alabama’s victory against Georgia. Now that he has completed a full season as a starter and is led by one of the top offensive coaches in the country, the 21-year-old senior quarterback’s expectations are sky high. But for Kalen DeBoer, Milroe’s work this spring has been all about making small improvements before the season begins.
“It’s something that’s progressed throughout the spring,” DeBoer said on Saturday in regard to a question about Bama’s offense scoring quickly on multiple drives in the 1st half (h/t Spenser Davis of Saturday Down South). “It’s just timing, it’s confidence, it’s read progressions and things like that. And identifying ‘there’s my one-on-one. There’s my guy.’ Where to put the ball. So I think it’s something that has gotten to this point and it was great to see him [Milroe] continue to take that next step and have that progression. So, the last week or two, I think that’s been pretty consistent. Early on, I can’t say any of the quarterbacks were just getting dialed in and those plays were being made.”
