It’s still early in his Alabama football coaching career, but it’s been good so far on the recruiting trail for Kalen DeBoer, easing one of the big concerns of the new coach when he took over for Nick Saban. The Crimson Tide currently stands as the No. 3 2025 class nationally, according to the 247Sports composite rankings.

The Tide currently has 17 commitments in the class, and work continues as recruits take their official visits to Alabama. During a Thursday appearance on Greg McElroy’s ESPN podcast, Always College Football, DeBoer discussed what makes the program appealing to top recruits in a post-Saban era.

“I think a combination of just everything that’s always happened here in the program, the development,” DeBoer said. “I know it’s high end guys that are coming in, but there is a lot of development that happens in the program.”

Throughout his career, DeBoer has shown the ability to develop players, something that’s helping him now. Last season, his Washington head had 10 players taken in the NFL Draft, three of them in the first round, including QB Michael Penix Jr., WR Rome Odunze and OT Troy Fautanu.

DeBoer said that success was a talking point in his current recruiting.

“The guys that were drafted from Washington this year, I think it’s just added another level of just kind of a stamp of, ‘Hey, this can happen at Alabama.’ And the staff I have around me, they’ve been proven, as well,” DeBoer said on the podcast. “So it’s made it probably a little more seamless just because those questions aren’t ones that really hang out there for an extended period of time.

“You just talk about and show people that maybe don’t know and aren’t aware of who all was drafted at Washington. But it’s certainly something that we wanna make sure we put out there in front and, not brag about, but make sure we highlight.”

DeBoer will make his Alabama coaching debut on Aug. 31 against Western Kentucky.