Alabama football still has one more game to play this season, but much of the focus now will be on roster construction for 2025.
The Crimson Tide won’t be in the College Football Playoff, instead they’re set to play in the ReliaQuest Bowl in Tampa on Dec. 31. Prep will start for that this month, but roster building has to become paramount with the transfer portal opening Monday.
Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer now has a full offseason with the program, a luxury he didn’t have in January when he replaced Nick Saban on Jan. 12. That creates a different dynamic when building a roster for the upcoming season.
“Last year, we were really just in full retention mode,” DeBoer said Sunday night. “There was no portal for us to take any guys, other than programs that lost head coaches. That was the situation we were in.”
That essentially meant pulling from players already in the portal or players from Michigan or Washington. Now, DeBoer and his staff have more time and flexibility.
Here’s how DeBoer plans to construct the roster heading into 2025:
“We’re going to build our program with our freshman class, which I’m really excited about,” DeBoer said. “The signees. We’re going to retain and develop the guys we have here and fill in the areas that need some numbers or need to be a little bit better on the football field on Saturdays. That’s a fluid thing, and I feel like communication is where it all starts.”
