I question how much of DeBoer's success is due to Penix? Who gets the credit, the coach for helping the player achieve success, or was the 6th year guy just good?
There's no doubt, DeBoer is a great coach, but Alabama is currently the best program in college football. Is he the best coach? That I doubt. To me the question on DeBoer's success will come down to, how much of Alabama's success is due to Alabama?
Meaning, DeBoer wasn't a great recruiter at Washington, he wasn't bad, but he didn't bring in top 10 classes. The SEC is a much different beast than the Pac 12. You're going to need top talent and a lot of it. Will the Alabama name alone get him top 10 classes? top 5? I'm going to assume yes, but that will be telling I think. If you look at the 2024 team recruiting rankings, the SEC has 13 of the top 25 (Pac 12 had 2, new Big 10 had 6). If you are even the #15 class, there are 6 SEC teams better than you. Need talent to win.
All that said, it's a no brainer for a coach. I'm sure he will get a stupid amount of money. If he fails, that money spends just as well as if he were successful. And as pointed out 9-4 is viewed as failure at Alabama, 10-3 and they're going to be mad at you. So he can succeed, but not enough for Alabama and get fired. Which will leave him with that fat bank account, and another great school will snatch him up quickly once the crazies cut him loose. Or he's successful and it's gravy.