This is an opinion column.

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Kalen DeBoer is the new coach at Alabama, picked on Friday to replace the greatest college football coach of all time.

No one is expecting DeBoer to be the next Nick Saban. That’s a ridiculous proposition. DeBoer and Saban do have something in common from the beginning, though. Both lost to Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan before leaving their jobs.

Good luck, Coach. That’ll be the last time anyone puts you on even ground with the GOAT.

Lose two games at Alabama, and it’ll be considered a down year. Lose three games and prepare for pitchforks, insurrectionists, end-time angel prophecies and the sudden multiplication of doomsday preppers throughout the state. No pressure, though. Just be yourself and everything will be fine.

Who is DeBoer? That’s what everyone is going to want to know in Alabama because no one has ever heard of him. I’m told he’s a softball dad, which is cool. As for football, he’s an SEC outsider, but a winner at every level of the game before this chance of a lifetime. Not that any of that is going to matter to fans.

At Alabama, it’s not if a coach wins, it’s by how much.

DeBoer was at Washington before Alabama. Before that he was at Fresno State. Two pieces of advice when moving to the Deep South from the Pacific Northwest. Go easy on the barbecue and bourbon and don’t — under any circumstance — compare the job at Alabama to any other previous coaching stop along the way.

It’s a different world here with a different set of rules.

Rule No.1: Winning national championships is all that matters. Everything else is just artificial sugar in sweet tea. At Washington, making the College Football Playoff and advancing to the national championship were considered successes. At Alabama, those menu items are about as common as fried chicken after church.

DeBoer has been a coach at the FBS level for four years and the Power 5 level for two. During his brief time in Seattle, his record was a tidy 25-3. He went 11-2 at Washington in 2022 and 14-1 last season, leading the Huskies to the national championship game. Here’s a fun fact. DeBoer is 2-0 against Texas over the last two years. Alabama has two wins against the Longhorns in the last 121 years.

It’s a start in the right direction.

DeBoer is 49 years old and originally from South Dakota. What I like about him is that he has quickly worked his way up from the NAIA level, winning at every stop along the way. There are skills that DeBoer brings to Alabama that can’t be bought at any price. What concerns me is that DeBoer has never recruited in the SEC and it’s a vicious, unforgiving ecosystem that devours the unprepared, overconfident and people who generally require sleep to function.

DeBoer is stepping into one of the most difficult jobs in sports history, taking over Alabama after the mighty reign of Saban. That’s one way to frame it. I see it differently.

There are going to be a lot of Alabama fans who are worried about the future. The concerns are legitimate, but take comfort in the fact that Saban walked away at the perfect time. Let me explain.

Saban retired at the top of his game. There was never any drop off at Alabama. Sure, we can quibble about Saban not winning a national championship over the past three seasons, but, really, that’s silly sports-radio stuff for people who don’t operate in reality. The facts are that Alabama is the defending SEC champion and was one overtime away from playing (and probably winning) the national title for the 2023 season.

The facts are that Alabama’s roster is loaded with talent and that it’s a lot easier to recruit to Alabama than to most any other school in the country.

DeBoer is walking into the best situation possible, and I expect him to win immediately. When Bobby Bowden stepped down at Florida State, the Seminoles were no longer the preeminent program in the country. When Joe Paterno walked away, Penn State was a ruinous mess of scandal and wet ash. Urban Meyer left broken-down Florida on the side of the road in alligator country.

Saban is leaving DeBoer the keys to a mansion in perfect working condition. There are no surprising leaks or faulty wires ready to shock the new homeowner. The roof is sound. The foundation is tip-top. Everything is fully stocked and a fleet of luxury automobiles are in the garage. DeBoer has it all at his disposal, but there’s also something else.

DeBoer takes over Alabama at a time in college football when everything is changing. The SEC is expanding to 16 teams this summer and adopting a single-division format. The old, impossibly difficult SEC West is gone. The landscape will be different for everybody this season and the College Football Playoff is going to 12 teams. Recruiting is different, too. NIL collectives buy players. If DeBoer and athletics director Greg Byrne can keep the coffers full, then the talent level shouldn’t fall off much if at all.

Not only did Saban leave Alabama with everything in perfect working order, he walked away at the best moment, too. No doubt Saban would have adapted to the changes, but retiring now gives his successor a chance to do something Saban never did. Compete and win at the beginning of a new era for college football.

Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of the most controversial sports book ever written, “We Want Bama”. It’s a love story about wild times, togetherness and rum.