Seven minutes until “Hey Coach” was scheduled to begin and the only parking place available at Baumhower’s Victory Grille in Tuscaloosa was a solitary handicapped spot behind the building. Undeterred, Alabama football fans parked on Harper Lee Drive and headed inside to see Kalen DeBoer’s first appearance on the radio show.

Fans crowded into any seat with a viewing angle for the program Wednesday, the booths toward the front of the building, out of eyesight of the stage, went totally vacant. Five minutes out and Smash Mouth’s “All-Star” echoed through the room, before “Sweet Home Alabama” drew a cheer, and the show began, albeit with a few technical issues during the intro, so minor they didn’t even make the airwaves.

“Roll Tide, and welcome to ‘Hey Coach,’” host Roger Hoover said to start the the program, jumping into a regular ad for Alfa Insurance.

The read was standard, but Monday’s edition was nowhere near regular. Since the last football edition of the show, most everything about Alabama had changed.

The one-hour program was different than it used to be during the regular season under Saban. It was shorter, among more obvious changes.

For starters, Eli Gold wasn’t in attendance after a messy offseason split between the longtime Alabama play-by-play man and the Crimson Tide Sports Network. Chris Stewart is the regular host, but Hoover, with producer Tom Stipe to his left, was handling the duty on Monday.

“Hey Coach,” didn’t have football player guests when Saban was on it, but Hoover went through three before DeBoer took his turn. Wilkin Formby was first, the Northridge product getting hefty applause in his hometown.

Formby kept his answers short, letting Hoover roll through the questions during the segment. The offensive tackle shouted out his friend, once and future teammate Kadyn Proctor, who was in the audience.

Next up was Germie Bernard, who took his seat as Formby began to take pictures with fans around the restaurant. The wideout, who followed DeBoer from Washington, gave the sales pitch for his coach.

“I’ve seen what they did in the past years over at Indiana, over at Fresno State and then what they did at Washington,” Bernard said. “So I know they have a good formula, and the standard is to win.”

Hoover finished up the player interviews with Jam Miller. Cut to commercial, then DeBoer came in the side door, bringing the Baumhower’s crowd to its feet. The coach, sporting a Crimson Tide quarter-zip with the script A logo, took his seat to Hoover’s right during the break.

The lead-in to his first segment: Stewart’s CTSN call of Jalen Milroe kneeling out the 2023 SEC Championship game. Hoover thanked DeBoer for his presence, then asked him about spring football.

Hoover’s second question had to do with UA’s recent A-Day spring game, which the offense won. Did DeBoer eat steak with the winners, or franks and beans with the defeated defense?

“I hear defensive guys every once in a while, and there’ll be times when they come to me, like the defensive backs for example, they’ll sit there and say ‘Man, we handled your offense, we handled your wide receivers, coach,’” DeBoer said. “I go ‘What do you mean my wide receivers?’ I go, ‘I’m on your side, when you won, I’m on your side.’ Well, the offense won and they keep telling me I’m an offensive guy, so I ate steak.”

The crowd, gathered under banners of UA’s national championship-winning coaches, laughed and was on DeBoer’s side throughout the night. Hoover asked him a another question on stage, with no media guest in the house as had been standard practice during Saban’s tenure on the show.

Then it was time for a familiar voice. Peewee Roberts, from Grand Bay, was on the line.

He’s been calling since the Gene Stallings era in Tuscaloosa and always gets the first question. Said question is usually about offensive line play, and the first call of DeBoer’s “Hey Coach” career was no different.

“I don’t know if you’ve been warned yet, but I’m kind of an offensive line guy,” Peewee said by way of introduction.

“I haven’t been warned, but I guess consider that done now,” DeBoer said with a smile, before Peewee launched into his question.

He opined on the importance of the unit, before asking what type of improvement the coach had seen. DeBoer agreed on the significance and said the group was one of the team’s most improved through spring practice.

One of the risks of running a call-in show like Alabama’s is occasionally running into a half-baked question. That happened with DeBoer’s second caller, who offered up a rambling mess of a query on the coach’s lack of experience recruiting in the south, somehow tying it to silencing the doubters and Graham Nicholson, a transfer portal kicker commit from Miami of Ohio.

DeBoer smiled during the question, then threw a Derrick Henry stiff-arm to any possible NCAA violations, noting that he could only speak about players currently on the team. Nicholson hasn’t officially joined the Tide yet.

As for the other stuff, DeBoer said all the right things, delivering an answer with far more coherence than the question. He said he’d tried to put together a staff with plenty of southern ties, with positive early returns

“We’ve had success in our recruiting here early, just because of the work of those guys,” DeBoer said. “Once we get the guys to campus, I think they really feel the energy.”

Hoover asked some more questions, then went to the phones once more. That call was less of a question, more of a welcome to the new head coach.

DeBoer spoke a bit more, then it was time to go. He took off the headset with a “Roll Tide,” and began his journey toward the door.

It took a while. During the coach’s final segment, Alabama’s assistant athletics director of football communications, Josh Maxson, walked toward the stage, evidently in charge of getting DeBoer outside.

Maxson did his best to hurry the process along, but was having a difficult time. Attendees wanted to meet the new man in charge.

DeBoer signed footballs, photos and one wrestling belt as a demo version of “Start Me Up” by the Rolling Stones, Nick Saban’s favorite band, played. Saban’s replacement shook hands, posed for pictures and inched closer and closer to the side door, which bore a sign stating it was “Not an exit.”

He headed through it anyway, eventually making it all the way outdoors. The process wasn’t over though, with a few stray autograph and photo-seekers standing on the sidewalk.

While Hoover went through one more segment, mentioning some of Alabama’s other sports, DeBoer managed to leave the property. As the show ended, patrons paid their tabs and headed for the doors.

As they left, parking was available at Baumhower’s once again. At least until August.