Alabama travels to Vanderbilt on Saturday for its second SEC contest of the season. The game will kick off at 3:15 p.m. Central Time on the SEC Network.
The sideline reporter for that game, Alyssa Lang, praised Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer during an interview with the Crimson Tide Sports Network.
“I have a ton of respect for the way coach DeBoer has gone about dealing with the pressure and dealing with the inevitable comparisons,” Lang said. “There’s some (coaches) who would say ‘this is my team,’…but he has been so masterful in the way that he obviously (allows) coach Saban to be involved with the team.”
Lang credited DeBoer for soaking in all the knowledge that Saban provides and the aspects of Saban’s program that he can build off of. But Lang also highlighted DeBoer’s creative side.
“(DeBoer) saying ‘Hey, I am the head coach of this program now, we are going to do things a little bit differently, there are going to be changes for how I’ve found success,'” Lang said.
To Lang, the most impressive aspect of DeBoer was what she heard about him in conversations with former and current players.
“I have yet to hear one person say one negative thing about Kalen DeBoer,” Lang said. “The way he cares about his players, the way he cares about people around him. How much people truly enjoy having conversations with him…That goes a really long way.
“He wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t a good football coach, but the fact that people have such kind things to say about him makes me even more excited to get to interact with him.”
The Tide are fresh off of the biggest win of DeBoer’s young coach tenure, taking down No. 2 Georgia thanks to a late Ryan Williams touchdown.
