From what learned this whole rumor got started because there was a time a few years ago that DeBoer supposedly told someone that Michigan would be his dream job. This was at a time though that Saban was still coaching Alabama. Also there was a wide belief that had Harbaugh left Michigan a little sooner that DeBoer would have left Washington for Michigan. All the talking heads now are going on the assumption that Michigan is still DeBoer's dream job. Having gotten the job at Alabama however could have changed all that because now going to Michigan isn't a promotion, it's just a lateral move.
You know what's funny?
Do you know how many times I've heard "Destination X" is somebody's dream job, but
you never actually ever hear the person say it?
Texas was Saban's dream job, and I cannot imagine for one second knowing how the boosters ran that program that he didn't know it; he might have said it in 1995 and got smart.
Notre Dame was Urban Meyer's - and he left them holding the heavy bag and went to Florida.
I learned years ago that unless a coach has actual ties to that school - and Kalen DeBoer is from South Dakota and played in Washington State. Yeah, he coached at Eastern Michigan.
I just don't buy all of these "this is that guy's dream job" because we hear it about everyone - but we virtually never hear it from the MOUTH of the coach except when Bobby Bowden said it about Alabama.
Let me comment further on Saban to Texas because I had the misfortune to be here and exposed to their news coverage when "Saban to Texas has been a done deal since October" was the rage in 2013.
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Here's what you have to understand about Texans: they are incapable of thinking beyond what THEY THEMSELVES would want, and they cannot process the idea that because A happened it means B IS NOT going to happen just like A.
This is how Longhorn fans reasoned and it's a lot like Michigan fans reasoned:
- Saban is a mercenary with no loyalty to anyone or anything
- Saban wants to win national titles at 3 different schools (how could they know this?)
- Austin is a better place than Tuscaloosa
- the Big 12 is easier to win in than the SEC (indisputably true at the time)
- Texas is Saban's "dream job" (maybe Sexton told them this)
- since the Aggies took Franchione away from Alabama, we can do the same with Saban because we have even more money than the Aggies
This last point I make is the most important because these folks literally thought the only reason Franchione left Alabama is because "Alabama couldn't get into a bidding war for him." They thought they were dealing with Iowa State or Kansas. Building on that erroneous foundation, they constructed the rest of their house of cards, rationalizing it all fall with, "we can pay him more than Alabama can."
As I finally broke through the surface to one guy, I pointed out: "Yes, you could. Texas COULD pay Saban $200 million per year to coach the football team and Alabama wouldn't match it. But that's not the question. The question is - what dollar total that you're actually going to pay a coach can you come up with that Alabama cannot match?"
They never got it. They so didn't get it that when they settled for Charlie Strong, Vikings owner Red McCombs sounded off about a big name coach and what a fine DC Strong would be, in utter denial until the very end that they'd lost out on Saban.
I've gone on too long again.
