A helluva big swing. And a helluva big risk.

There’s no other takeaway from Alabama hiring Washington coach Kalen DeBoer to replace Nick Saban.

This has nothing to do with filling the massive hole left by Saban’s retirement. It has everything to do with a significant, undeniable blind spot.

It’s all new to DeBoer.

The SEC. Recruiting the South. A (lovingly) lunatic fan base. Oppressive expectations.

Win, or else.

All of it.

All of what he has avoided in 9 seasons as a head coach at NAIA Sioux Falls, Fresno State and most recently, a brilliant 2-year run at Washington.

Understand this: Chris Petersen only left his comfortable job at Boise State for Washington because, he said, Washington was similar to the contained environment at Boise State — only with a larger campus.

There’s nothing contained about Alabama. It’s not Fresno, Calif., or Seattle or, good grief, South Dakota.

Look, DeBoer is a fantastic football coach. He has won at every college level, and has won 11 or more games in 7 of his 9 seasons as a head coach.

He won national titles (plural) at Sioux Falls, he won 25 of 28 games at Washington and took the Huskies all the way to the National Championship Game earlier this month.

But this is different. This is all-encompassing and unrelenting.

I’ve said this over and over and over: The expectation at Alabama is to win every game. And even if you do, there are still complaints about the execution of it all.

Knowing this, Alabama AD Greg Byrne decided to hire DeBoer — who has never recruited the South, never coached in the SEC and frankly hasn’t coached in a conference where every week is a fistfight.

Where winning is exhaling, and losing is tragedy.

The last guy hired that joined the SEC blindly was Bryan Harsin, who left Boise State for Auburn and was nearly fired after Year 1. Then got fired before the end of Year 2.

At Auburn, where expectations aren’t nearly at the same level as Alabama.

To be fair, a guy named Urban never coached in the SEC. Never recruited in the South. Didn’t know anything about the SEC.

Then he walked into a meatgrinder job that might not have the expectations and unique circus around the program that Alabama does, but it’s pretty damn close.

All Urban Meyer did was win 2 national titles at Florida before flaming out after 6 white-hot seasons of nothing they’d ever witnessed in Gainesville. That’s including the remarkable 12 years of Steve Spurrier.

So while it’s more than fair to proclaim Byrne fell victim to prisoner of the moment, that the prudent choice would’ve been someone who knew the landscape and was a proven winner in the SEC (hello, Lane Kiffin), it doesn’t mean it’s the wrong move.

It just means Byrne stepped into the box for his first major hire at Alabama and took a gigantic swing. A gamble like no other at a place like no other.

The last coach to be hired at Alabama without any SEC experience or knowledge of the league was also from the state of Washington. Here’s how that train wreck unfolded:

Mike Price was hired from Washington State and walked into his first team meeting and threw sugar packets on the tables. Win the SEC, get to the Sugar Bowl.

One problem: Alabama was on probation and wasn’t bowl eligible.

It only got worse from there, with Price lasting all of 3 months after a date with Destiny. No, really, a date with a stripper named Destiny, which eventually led to his firing after a wild and sordid night he’d rather forget.

Prior to that, Alabama hired Denis Franchione, another coach with zero ties to Alabama and the SEC. That lasted 2 seasons — but it gave us an idea of the unique underpinnings of the gig.

Franchione had built TCU into a national presence after the program was left to die on the vine when the old Southwest Conference merged with the Big 8. He was the hot coach, the next big thing.

He won 7 games in Year 1, and 10 games in Year 2 — and then left for Texas A&M. Years ago, after he left Alabama, Franchione tried to explain the nuances of coaching in the belly of the beast.

Within the first few months of getting the Alabama job, he was asked to stand on the back of a flatbed trailer and raffle off a cake. Why? A big booster wanted it, that’s why.

Not long after that, he was given a note that a longtime fan of Alabama was sick and her dream was to meet the head coach. Fran agreed to see her because, well, who wouldn’t?

When he arrived at her home and went to her bedside, he noticed a signed picture of Bear Bryant on her bed stand.

“The job away from football was like nothing I’d ever seen before,” Franchione told me years ago. “I don’t think anyone can comprehend it unless you’re in it.”

Football is different at Alabama. Saban avoided much of the outside distractions because it was part of his deal when he left the NFL’s Dolphins. He told then-Alabama AD Mal Moore that he wanted to coach football. Period.

That doesn’t mean Saban wasn’t gracious with his time when he felt it was appropriate, or that he didn’t do (and still does) a world of good with he and his wife Terry’s foundation, Nick’s Kids.

It just means it’s different, and it takes a different person — a rare person — to juggle it all and still be expected to win every football game.

Bryant did it. Gene Stallings did it, too. Saban clearly did it better than anyone.

Now Kalen DeBoer gets his shot, and much like Saban, he’s a players’ coach who’s at the top of his game on one side of the ball (offense). Who cares what choice he was, or if he was the fallback candidate.

It’s a helluva big swing by Byrne.

But with no risk comes no reward.