Kalen DeBoer Evaluates Key Difference in Alabama's Roster Compared to Past Years

Alabama football is built on tradition and championships, but that doesn't come unless veteran player-led leadership emerges.

But heading into the summer, that's a question mark for the Crimson Tide's 2026 roster. Head coach Kalen DeBoer and company had a ton of players exhaust their collegiate eligibility and a total of 10 products were selected in the NFL Draft.

Nevertheless, Alabama replaced these losses with players from the transfer portal. However, a large majority of these transfers aren't exactly in the same category as UA linebacker Jah-Marien Latham, who is entering his seventh season.

"We have a lot of youth still, but our youth has played a lot of snaps in a lot of cases," DeBoer told Greg McElroy on the Always College Football podcast on Wednesday. "There's even players across the board who have played snaps at other places, too.

"We have very few seniors. We have nine seniors, eight on defense and one on offense, but we've got a lot of juniors. I think we've got 19 juniors, guys who are in their third year, and a number of them are in their third year in our program."

DeBoer explained that having the new, young faces "jumps out" to him because it's different from the typical norm that is today's college football. NIL and the transfer portal have veteran players moving constantly. DeBoer acknowledged that anytime one goes elsewhere, "It takes you out of your comfort zone," and it's like "you're drinking through a fire hose."

But he sees this useful 2026 batch in a different light and it showed during the spring.

"I have a lot of appreciation for our new players who've come in, who really had an open mind, we're excited and enthusiastic about this opportunity," DeBoer said. "Have a high level of skill but know they also have room to refine and get better. They took into the weight program, and I think again, eyes wide open to what that looks like here at Alabama. That hit them in the face. But, man, they just kept going.

Sometimes, in any scenario, a senior may not interact as much with a freshman or younger player. In general, people are friendlier with those their own age. And with that comes chemistry — a vital factor that Alabama has been building on and taking advantage of with this year's group.

"The guys that were here and open-armed accepting the guys that came in when they saw how hard they were going to work and be like, 'You know, what? We can do this.'" DeBoer said. "And I think there's kind of just a silent kind of way we're methodically going about our work.

"It is different probably than what I've expected and experienced most years. Most years, you know who most of the guys are all the way across the board that you can really expect to lead the charge and that makes you feel good, makes you feel a little bit more comfortable. But I think our coaching staff's doing a really good job of pushing all these guys, giving them the feedback they need to hear, not just what they want to hear.

"And so it's been a good dynamic. That doesn't win you games. You've got to win the games by doing things at a high level. And so again, that's where a lot of the work that we have ahead of us this summer in this fall is going to be super important."

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