Germie Bernard didn’t have to think long or hard as to why he followed Kalen DeBoer from Washington to Alabama football.

The answer was pretty simple.

“The recipe that he has of winning,” Bernard said. “If you look at his track record at every school that he’s been to, he’s winning. And they have a great offense that is going to get receivers the ball and be explosive and that’s something I wanted to be in.”

Bernard spent the 2023 season playing for DeBoer on the Washington team that made the College Football Playoff and lost in the national championship game to Michigan. Bernard started seven games while appearing in 14 of them, catching 34 passes for 419 yards. He caught two touchdowns and rushed for two.

Bernard, a junior from Las Vegas, also spent the 2022 season with Michigan State.

He was part of a stacked receiver room in 2023 at Washington, playing with the likes of Rome Odunze, Ja’Lynn Polk and Jalen McMillan. All three went in the first three rounds of the 2024 NFL Draft.

During that time working in the receiver room with those future NFL talents, Bernard had a chance to learn from JaMarcus Shephard, the receivers coach who followed DeBoer from Washington to Alabama.

Bernard listed Shephard as the primary thing that sold him on transferring to Alabama.

“The coaching aspect, you guys know what he does,” Bernard said. “It’s more than that. It’s the faith piece. The way he believes in God and the way he spreads his word to his players and everybody throughout the building, he’s a great man. He cares for others. He loves others. Very unselfish … just a great dude overall.”

Nick Kelly is an Alabama beat writer for AL.com and the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X and Instagram.