Kalen DeBoer is no fool. He knew the enormous shoes he was stepping into when he agreed to leave Washington to take the Alabama head coaching job. He also had the humility to understand that he was never going to fill them, but he wasn't afraid of the challenge. He was driven by it. He still is.
So while DeBoer acknowledged on Wednesday that he felt Alabama "righted some wrongs" by winning some close games and getting into the College Football Playoff last season, he was also quick to point out that it still wasn't up to the internal standard in Tuscaloosa.
"We felt like we righted a wrong a little bit last year compared to the year before with some of the things we accomplished," DeBoer said at SEC Media Days. "We also understand we fell short of our expectations internally."
Later, DeBoer was asked if he believed his Alabama tenure would be defined by whether or not he leads the Crimson Tide to a National Championship or not:
"I certainly know that’s an important part of what’s happened in the program, so I wouldn’t doubt if that’s the case," DeBoer said.
That's taking the long road to a simple answer. The simple answer, coach, is yes.
You, and every coach before you in Alabama football history, have been defined by whether or not you win a national championship.
Kalen DeBoer's Alabama tenure boils down to whether he leads the Crimson Tide to a national title
There's no escaping that pressure in Tuscaloosa. Every Saturday in the fall for home games, when you walk into the stadium, you are strolling down the "Walk of Champions." Statues of every title-winning coach in program history flank you to the right. They're staring at you with dark beady eyes, ensuring you fully understand the weight of the job.
Wallace Wade, Frank Thomas, Bear Bryant, Gene Stallings, and Nick Saban. All won national titles with the Crimson Tide. Saban and Bryant won six apiece and will forever stand above any coach who comes after them.
No other coach in program history is talked about with any kind of reverence. If you didn't win it all, you were probably run out of town. Ray Perkins and Bill Curry certainly were in a post-Bryant world.
Mike DuBose and Mike Shula, too.
That's your option as the head coach at Alabama. You either join the venerable quintet with a statue in the shadow of Bryant-Denny Stadium, or you get remembered like Perkins, Curry, DuBose, Shula, and others whose names have been mostly forgotten.
That's Alabama football.
That's the standard. It's the one DeBoer is trying to live up to.
He understands it better now than he did two and a half years ago when he boarded the plane from Seattle bound for Tuscaloosa.
At Alabama, every coach gets the same opportunity. "Where Legends Are Made" is the university's signature.
As the football coach, you have one of three options:
You become a legend, you are remembered for failure, or you're forgotten altogether.
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