Kalen DeBoer is turning the ship the right way at Alabama in his second year at its helm.
He struggled last season, but the HC has been taking notes and is duly working on them. The sun seems to shine in Tuscaloosa, with new offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb running point on the offensive side.
As DeBoer adds a new page to his Alabama career, some key developments are making quite the conversation. He might have been let off easily by experts because of 2024 being his debut year. But 2025 seems to be a promising season for the new Alabama HC.
particular topic of interest in the new era of Crimson Tide football is Ryan Williams. He and DeBoer both began their first years in the shadow of Nick Saban’s legacy. But among them, Williams seemed to have the better time. Alabama faltered towards the end of the season, but not without making Williams a budding talent to look out for. An elite player through and through, he is now ranked the No.3 wide receiver by 247Sports, with a five-star rating. As a true freshman last year, Williams pitched in 865 receiving yards and 8 touchdowns. With DeBoer focused on making a better year out of 2025, Williams will play a bigger role as well as a wide receiver. WRs Germie Bernard and Isaiah Horton will be important players that Williams can look to rely on, according to an insider.
Clint Lamb told Mick Gillispie how the situation could play out in 2025 in a March 31 episode of Cover Crimson. He crowned Williams as the lead in the WR Room right away. “Ryan Williams is going to be kind of that alpha number one,” Lamb said. He then explained how the other two WRs would place in the depth chart. “But, I would probably say, in my opinion, Bernard’s going to be the number two with Horton being a 2B. I think they’re pretty evenly split. I think this year, compared to last year, it was just two guys who were way ahead of everybody else as far as the targets. This year, I would say there’s at least going to be three guys like that, if not four.”
