Kalen DeBoer is not Nick Saban. They have different styles and approaches. And that’s OK, if you ask tight end CJ Dippre, who played for both with Alabama football.
Dippre, while joining “Beat Everyone,” AL.com’s Alabama football podcast, was asked to compare and contrast DeBoer and Saban after starting a combined 24 games for the two coaches after transferring from Maryland. Dippre is in the middle of preparing for the 2025 NFL Draft.
“They both do great things,” Dippre said. “They do it differently. You know, Coach Saban’s very old school, old school, full pads all the time, strict to business, plain Jane, wearing what you’re supposed to wear. Coach DeBoer was a little lenient on that. Not that it was bad or good, but we played music during practice and you can wear sleeves if you wanted to wear sleeves, just little things. But, Coach DeBoer is more of a younger coach. So, he gets people play better when they listen to music.”
Dippre took no issue with that, even if he is more built for old school.
“I always think like, feel better or if you have to look good to play better, it works. Just let it work,” Dippre said. “So if you want to go out there with sleeves on or go out there with white cleats on or something like that, it’s kind of if you’re feeling better and playing better, he let that go. So I thought that was a definitely cool thing. I’m an old school kind of guy, but you definitely see it from other players that take advantage of that stuff. So it’s like if it works it works.”
Another difference Dippre noticed: He saw DeBoer around the Mal M. Moore Athletic Facility more.
“(DeBoer) had his door opened a lot more,” Dippre said. ”Not that Coach Saban didn’t, but Coach Saban is on (the level of) the greatest college football coach to ever coach the game. It’s not that he was always around. He had meetings, he had other things to do or to go to meet with other people or something with ESPN. So he had a lot of stuff to do because even more than a coach, he’s a celebrity. He is an icon, so everybody knows him.”Dippre will appear on Thursday’s episode of “Beat Everyone,” AL.com’s Alabama football podcast. Find it on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
