One brave soul

 I remember Kalen DeBoer. Vaguely.

I remember looking across a high school football field in the sleepy wilds of southwestern Tennessee, and seeing this young guy pacing the opposing sideline. I remember watching his football team, the University of Sioux Falls Cougars, beat the team I was covering in the NAIA national championship game, the University of Saint Francis Cougars from Fort Wayne.

It was the third straight year Saint Francis was playing in the title game. They were coached by a platinum-grade legend, Kevin Donley. Sioux Falls was coached by DeBoer -- a 31-year-old alum who'd played wide receiver there, and was in only his second season as a head coach.

That was 18 years ago, in 2006. DeBoer went on to go 67-3 at Sioux Falls and win two of the next three NAIA titles, giving him three national championships in four years.

Now he's 49 years old, and the head coach at Alabama.

Which makes him one brave soul, by the Blob's lights.

He's a brave soul -- the bravest of the brave, maybe -- because the man he's replacing, Nick Saban, is perhaps the greatest college football coach of all time. In his head coaching career, he won seven national titles -- six of them at Alabama, where he spent 17 seasons.

What that means is more than a third of time Saban spent in Tuscaloosa, the Crimson Tide finished as the No. 1 team in the land. It's why there's a statue of him outside Bryant-Denny Stadium now.

In other words, those just aren't big shoes DeBoer has agreed to fill. Those are freaking gunboats, the USS Legacy and the USS Icon. 

And, yes, between head coaching gigs at Sioux Falls, Fresno State and Washington, he's won 11 games in seven of nine seasons and has an overall record of 105-12. At Washington, his high-octane offense turned Michael Penix Jr. into a top-shelf NFL prospect, took Washington to the last Pac-12 championship and transformed the Huskies into a juggernaut that went 24-3 in two seasons, and didn't lose this year until Michigan ground them down in the CFP title game.

All of which obviously dazzled the folks in Tuscaloosa, who waited all of three days after Saban announced his retirement to hire DeBoer.

Some might regard that as a tad hasty, despite DeBoer's glittering resume. It smacks a bit of Alabama doing precisely what legacy programs should never do, which is hire the flavor of the month to replace a legend.

The Blob is not saying that's what DeBoer is. But it does acknowledge that he'd better be as good as the evidence suggests if he's not going to wind up as the dreaded Guy Who Follows The Guy.

Those Guys do not have an enviable track record, historically speaking. Which gets back to why DeBoer is the bravest of souls, because following the Guy is yea more difficult in the era of NIL and the transfer portal, which compels coaches -- even legends like Nick Saban -- to constantly re-recruit their own players.

Which means DeBoer's got a hell of a selling job ahead. And much else, of course/

"Brave" might not be a strong enough term.