The wheels of the plane carrying Alabama’s football’s next head coach kissed the tarmac of Tuscaloosa National Airport at 8:37 Friday night.

Moments later, Kalen DeBoer stepped out of the plane, which was ironically adorned with orange and blue striping, and was greeted by a mass of Crimson Tide fans who had spent the moments prior singing an acapella version of “Dixieland Delight”.

It was a warm welcome until one Alabama fan had the guts to give DeBoer a real welcome.

No, that real welcome didn’t come in the shape of a Yellowhammer cocktail or even a “Sabanade” from Innisfree’s Tuscaloosa establishment.

Instead, the welcome came in three words: “Start recruiting, coach,” the fan yelled.

Chances are, the Crimson Tide fan who yelled those words remember what happened the last time an SEC football program in the state of Alabama hired an out-of-towner with no prior experience in the conference.

If nothing else, Auburn fans sure do.

As news of DeBoer’s expected hiring broke, Auburn fans took to social media to react – calling Alabama’s new head coach “Husky Harsin” or “Harsin 2.0.” The nicknames DeBoer earned were the result of his hiring feeling similar to Auburn’s hiring of Bryan Harsin back in 2020.

Just how similar are the hires? Well, to be honest, DeBoer arrives to Tuscaloosa with a much more attractive resume than what Harsin arrived to Auburn with.

When Harsin arrived to The Plains, he did so after securing a 69-19 record at Boise State.

Meanwhile, DeBoer comes to Tuscaloosa after amassing a 25-3 record, a college football playoff appearance, a trip to the national championship and having coached a Heisman finalist during his time at Washington.

But to the point of Tigers fans, like Harsin, DeBoer doesn’t come with SEC experience. And for Auburn fans, that’s proven to be more than enough to raise a red flag.

Harsin, a native of Boise, spent his 22-month tenure on The Plains struggling to fit into the culture at Auburn, the culture in the state of Alabama and the culture of SEC football.

And that struggle eventually bled onto the recruiting trail, where Harsin neglected to foster relationships with in-state high school football programs.

At Jackson High School, head football coach Cody Fluornoy told AL.com in August that his program was never paid a visit by someone in Auburn gear during Harsin’s time with the Tigers. It’s worth noting this happened while Jackson High School had a former player on Auburn’s roster in defensive back Nehemiah Pritchett.

Less than 20 minutes away from Auburn’s campus, former Opelika High School head coach Erik Speakman shared similar stories in an August interview with AL.com.

“I don’t know why he didn’t put an emphasis on recruiting, maybe they just thought they could out-coach people,” Speakman said of Harsin. “But with the quality of coaching and the quality of players in this league, it’s not just coaching and it’s not just recruiting. So it’s not one or the other, you’ve gotta do both.”

So when it came time to replace Harsin, Auburn was careful not to make the same mistake twice.

Instead, they landed on Hugh Freeze, who came to The Plains with SEC experience, coaching success and success on the recruiting trail.

Flanked by the two “gold standards” of college football in Alabama and Georgia, while also coming on the heels of a Harsin-led administration that didn’t put too much into recruiting, when Freeze arrived at Auburn, he knew he had plenty of ground to make up on the recruiting front.

Fortunately for the Tigers, Freeze and his staff were able to do so quickly as they recently secured the seventh-ranked recruiting class in the country – Auburn’s first top 10 finish since 2020. And much of that success came from right inside the state of Alabama.

Auburn’s pair of 5-star wide receivers in Cam Coleman and Perry Thompson both hail from inside the Alabama state line. Meanwhile, five of Auburn’s 4-star signees also come from the Yellowhammer State.

Such results are perfectly on par for what Freeze has looked to accomplish, which is putting up a fence in Auburn’s backyard and securing hometown prospects.

“I think we signed 12 guys from the state of Alabama, which is big because we want to win this state,” Freeze said during his press conference on national signing day. “I don’t know if we won the state this year or not. I don’t know how that’s determined. We certainly want to in the future of winning our share if not more than our share in this state.”

In the case of DeBoer, he’s proved he can do the coaching.

Before reaching the FBS ranks, DeBoer spent five seasons at the helm of Sioux Falls – a NAIA program. During his time there, DeBoer posted a 67-3 record and won three NAIA championships. DeBoer also had a brief stint at Fresno State, where he posted a 12-6 record.

Both of those stops, paired with his time at Washington, have DeBoer coming to Alabama with an impressive 104-12 head coaching record.

But like Speakman said, here? In this state and in this conference? Coaching can only get a program so far if recruiting isn’t also a priority.

During his time at Washington, DeBoer never saw one of his recruiting classes rank higher than No. 26 in the nation. Prior to his departure, DeBoer had the Huskies sitting with the No. 41 recruiting class in the country.

Now, sure, even with Saban retired, recruiting to Alabama is night and day different when compared to recruiting to Washington. But those differences can only come into play if DeBoer leans into them on the recruiting trail.

And now that Auburn’s got Freeze – a coach who flipped 5-star wide receiver Perry Thompson away from Saban and Alabama in July, as well as having recently flipped 2025 4-star defensive lineman Antonio Coleman from the Tide – for Crimson Tide fans, the hope is DeBoer was listening Friday night when a fan standing behind a chain-link fence told him to start recruiting.