When he was first introduced as the Alabama head coach, Kalen DeBoer said he would try and get a little piece of advice from Nick Saban every day and lean on his experience.
But this past week, DeBoer got some more wisdom from a legendary Crimson Tide head coach, Gene Stallings.
Stallings, 89, made an appearance in support of the RISE Center on Thursday which assists young children with disabilities.
When speaking with the media, Stallings was asked if he had any advice for DeBoer, whom he is yet to meet in person.
“I’d tell him not to start off the way I did,” Stallings said jokingly according to Tide Illustrated. “We lost our first (three) games. Now they were all close, but we still lost them. So I do not advise anybody who goes to Alabama to start off (0-3).”
Stallings was able to rebound after his rocky start with the Crimson Tide in 1990 and would usher the team back to glory in 1992 with a national championship win. Across his seven years as the Alabama head coach Stallings posted and overall record of 70-16.
DeBoer is yet to capture a national championship during his own impressive run as a head coach in college football, but he did make it clear that the program’s high expectations of success aren’t going anywhere.
“In all honesty, that’s what you come here for,” Deboer said. “Right? You come here and there’s gonna come a point in time where there’s a lot of pressure going into every week, or going even into a moment in the game. And the thing I’m always gonna remind the guys of is, this is why you came here. And that’s why I came here too, is to be a part of that, having those expectations and that’s what it’s been and that’s what it needs to be.”
With spring football complete, DeBoer and Alabama will now take the summer to work towards fall camp and the start of the regular season when it hosts Western Kentucky on Aug. 31 inside Bryant-Denny Stadium.
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