Paul Finebaum: Kalen DeBoer’s streak feels like ‘vintage Alabama recruiting’ under Nick Saban
By Paul Harvey
Published:
Paul Finebaum has watched many eras of Alabama football come and go. Now, it’s the Kalen DeBoer show in Tuscaloosa, and the offseason is starting to heat up for the successor to longtime coach and legendary Nick Saban.
During Monday’s appearance for “McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning,” Finebaum particularly spoke to the continuity DeBoer found this offseason by hiring his longtime offensive coordinator and right-hand man, Ryan Grubb. It allowed the Crimson Tide to see that continuity start “oozing over to recruiting.”
Over the past week, Alabama has landed a pair of top-50 prospects for the 2026 recruiting class. Those commitments come in the form of Ezavier Crowell, a 4-star running back and in-state prospect, and 5-star edge Xavier Griffin out of Georgia.
Things are heating up to the point that Finebaum described as “almost” feeling like the legendary Saban is back at the helm:
“Quite frankly, this is one of the great recruiting runs we’ve seen in some years. It almost feels like Nick Saban is running the ship again when it comes to recruiting,” said Finebaum. “This has been vintage Alabama recruiting, and I think when we saw this transition 2 and a half years ago, I think a lot of people doubted people could come back to this particular moment in time. But it is here, and I think it bodes extremely well for Alabama in the future.”
Finebaum also said it’s ultimately an “irritating signal” for the rest of the college football world. Even without Saban, it looks like DeBoer’s program will be competing at the top for the foreseeable future.
“To the rest of college football, this is an annoying and irritating signal… Nick Saban may be gone, but Alabama is still one of the great standards in all time of college football,” Finebaum predicted. “I think a lot of people forgot that, especially younger people who only knew the Nick Saban era.”
At this point, Alabama is up to the 8th overall recruiting class in the country, according to the team composite rankings. However, the Tide have the 3rd-best average rating in the country from their 14 hard commitments.
In that lens, there is still time to make a run at the No. 1 overall class in the country, currently held by USC.
Paul Harvey lives in Atlanta and covers SEC football.
