Alabama is a long way from South Dakota. But the Crimson Tide football team’s brand has long stretched nationwide, even reaching a young Kalen DeBoer, growing up in Milbank.

DeBoer, during a Thursday interview on former UA quarterback Greg McElroy’s ESPN podcast, Always College Football, said his first memory of the Tide came in 1992.

“Being in high school and coach (Gene) Stallings with the championship team there in the early ‘90s,” DeBoer said. “I just remember there was something about that, him being on the sideline. That just seemed, being a South Dakota boy, not having traveled around and definitely been to this part of the country, it just seemed so far away and so outrageous to think about Alabama football.”

DeBoer began his coaching career at his alma mater, Sioux Falls. Things took off from there, with three NAIA national titles leading to an offensive coordinator gig at Southern Illinois, then Eastern Michigan.

At his next stop, DeBoer would meet Alabama on the field for the first time, with the Crimson Tide then coached by Nick Saban. DeBoer took over as offensive coordinator at Fresno State in 2017, the same year the Bulldogs were scheduled for a battle with No. 1 Alabama in Bryant-Denny Stadium the second week of the season.

It predictably didn’t go great for DeBoer and company, and the Tide rolled to a 41-10 victory on the way to a national championship.

“Coming over and we were kind of working out way up, it was our first year there,” DeBoer said on the podcast. “So we had a lot of things we were trying to figure out and sort through. But just the environment, the energy, the excitement leading up to the game. Of course the game itself, it was special. You could see it, and so I had a visual in my head of what it was like as this (coaching search) process was all happening.”

DeBoer took over for Saban when the man who won six national titles in Tuscaloosa retired in January. He came over from Washington, after leading the Huskies to an appearance in the 2023 national championship game.

He’ll make his debut as Alabama’s head coach on Aug. 31, when the Tide faces Western Kentucky.