Kalen DeBoer Shuts Down Penn State Rumors: ‘There’s Never Been Any Link’
Kalen DeBoer is not entertaining the Penn State conversation. At all.
The Alabama head coach got asked about the Penn State opening on Thursday, days before the SEC Championship Game against Georgia. His answer was about as direct as it gets from a sitting coach.
“We are extremely happy at Alabama. There’s never been any link, there’s never been any conversation, there’s never been any interest either way. So, I’m glad we can put that to bed right now,” DeBoer said.
That should kill the rumor. Whether it actually does depends on how much oxygen Penn State gives it.
The Nittany Lions are still searching for a head coach after firing James Franklin in late October. They expected to wrap this up quickly. They have not. Reports indicate they have been turned down by multiple targets, and the early signing period just delivered them a top-150 recruiting class that is sitting behind South Dakota State.
That is the situation Penn State is in. So of course names like DeBoer get floated. He has won a national championship game appearance at Washington. He is in year two at Alabama. He just beat Georgia earlier this season. He has the resume.
But DeBoer making a lateral move from Alabama to Penn State would be one of the strangest decisions in modern college football. Alabama is Alabama. The job pays at the top of the market. The roster recruits itself. The infrastructure is built for sustained playoff runs.
Penn State has resources and a fanbase and a tradition. It also has a brutal Big Ten schedule, a recruiting footprint that does not match Alabama’s, and right now, a fractured locker room and a recruiting class collapsing in real time.
The math does not work for DeBoer. The math does not work for any sitting coach at a top-tier program. That is part of why Penn State is in this mess. The market has moved past them.
Alabama is 10-2 and in the SEC Championship Game. Win Saturday and the Crimson Tide are in the College Football Playoff with a real shot. Lose and they likely still have a path as an at-large. Either way, DeBoer is taking the program back to a place that felt distant after a 9-4 first season.
DeBoer’s first year in Tuscaloosa was uncomfortable. Missing the playoff at 9-3 was treated as a national crisis. His own postseason comments about the schedule and the noise did not land well. Some of the buzz around him then was about whether he could survive year two.
Now the question is whether he wants to leave. The answer is no.
The interesting wrinkle is that DeBoer made a point of saying it was the first time he had been asked. That suggests the rumor was more media speculation than anything originating from an actual conversation. Penn State will need to look harder and probably aim lower than this kind of name.
The Nittany Lions have created a problem of their own making by waiting too long. The best candidates are off the board. The market has tightened. Recruits are flipping in real time to Virginia Tech to follow Franklin.
DeBoer was never the answer. He just confirmed it in front of cameras.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
