Alabama was left scrambling after Nick Saban’s sudden retirement. And even though they were able to lure Kalen DeBoer away from Washington, it reportedly wasn’t the program’s first choice.
According to Crimson Tide beat writer Mike Rodak, FSU’s Mike Norvell was who Bama really had its eye on to succeed its six-time national champion on the sideline.
Sharing during a recent appearance on SiriusXM radio:
The question that he got was, was Kalen DeBoer your first choice? I don’t think any AD is going to answer one way or the other on that one, especially if it’s the guy that wasn’t your first choice. … And Byrne kind of dodged the question in terms of not even really trying to make the claim that he was, and I think we realized just kind of through those 48 hours that there were certainly other names out there. I think the realest one was probably Mike Norvell [with] everything that I’ve heard.
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— Holli H. FSU 🍢❤️💛 (@NolesStacey) January 14, 2024
Rodak went on to add that he believes Norvell’s new contract extension to stay in Tallahassee is evidence that the Tide drove up the price.
Obviously the contract I think on his end was very correlated with the Alabama coaching search. I don’t know if the Dan Lanning and Steve Sarkisian [contract renegotiations] were as much as a direct result of that.
Regardless how it went down, the Kalen DeBoer era has officially begun down in Tuscaloosa and he’ll have some big shoes to fill.