Former Washington defensive back, Dom Hampton feels Alabama football players have not bought all the way into Kalen DeBoer in Tuscaloosa.
Hampton played under DeBoer at Washington in 2022 and 2023. He was a starter for the Huskies when Washington made it to the National Championship game under the now Alabama head coach.
The former Washington DB feels the Tide players must buy into what DeBoer is building in Tuscaloosa if they want to have success.
“It’s about buying into what the coach is speaking, that’s in every level of football,” Hampton said on the “Bring the Juice” podcast. “You got to have a brotherhood or culture. If you don’t, you about to lose. Once shit start getting hard, it’s over with.”
Hampton also discussed DeBoer’s ability to be effective at operating an explosive passing attack.
“His super power is having someone run wide open,” Hampton said. “But at the end of the day, you still got to make that throw. End of the day, your QB still got to read that. In the day, your line still got a block. End of the day, your other receivers still got to run their routes to get people distracted so he can get open. It all comes down to if everybody wants to buy in. You gonna run your route hard for him to get open. Bama. They probably don’t got that. They looking at it like Ryan Williams is the guy. You get open, bro. Like, yeah, you get open. You don’t need me to get you open. But at UW when we played, it was like we had the second receiver taking (Rone Udenze) running the route hard as possible so, homeboy can get open. And that’s why it worked.”
Alabama went 9-4 in first year under DeBoer.
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Justin Smith is the Director of Recruiting for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter, via @Jdsmith31Smith
