Kalen DeBoer and the Crimson Tide might still be licking wounds from the Rose Bowl. Just as they hoped to hit the reset button in 2026, trouble is already knocking. Alabama got outrun by four SEC rivals in the recruiting field. 

“Only 6 teams signed both a top-15 transfer class and a top-15 recruiting class in 2026,” reported On3 Sports’ Keegan Pope. 

The teams that made it to the list, spreading salt on Alabama’s wounds, are the LSU Tigers, Texas Longhorns, Texas A&M Aggies, and Florida Gators. Aside from the four SEC teams, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the Miami Hurricanes made the list. 

While Alabama stumbled according to On3’s 2026 College Football Team Transfer Portal Rankings, several SEC rivals thrived in the portal, with Texas A&M (No. 3) and LSU (No. 4) landing top-five classes, and Texas (No. 10) and Florida (No. 12) also securing top-15 spots. 

In contrast, the program’s high school recruiting remains strong in the 2026 Industry Ranking football Team Recruiting Rankings; DeBoer’s program is in a satisfactory place. Among the SEC competitors, Alabama tops the list at No. 6 with a total of 26 commits. The Tigers are at No. 12 with 18 recruits locked in, the Longhorns at No. 10 with 24, the Aggies at No. 7 with 27, and the Gators at No. 14 with 20. Then what made DeBoer struggle in the transfer portal landscape? Well, year one came with growing pains.

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Alabama missed the College Football Playoff and closed at 9-4, the program’s lowest point since Nick Saban first rolled into Tuscaloosa almost 20 years ago. Players might have expected a turnaround under DeBoer in 2025, and he flipped the script, crashing the playoffs as a three-loss team and becoming the first non-conference champion to ever pull it off.

But DeBoer’s strong playoff run couldn’t erase the damage to their reputation as they got crushed by Indiana in a 38-3 Rose Bowl face-off. Amidst this, Alabama struck fast, pulling in former NC State playmaker Hollywood Smothers, 247Sports’ No. 2 transfer running back. His commitment came within days of the portal opening. However, he later changed his mind and, within less than a week of his Alabama commitment, Smothers signed with Texas.

Alabama’s situation is the same as Oregon’s. The Ducks rank No. 4 in the 2026 recruiting class, but dropped to No. 29 in transfer portal class rankings. The takeaway for programs like Alabama is clear: in the modern era, legacy alone isn’t enough. For transfer portal players, Alabama’s glory days under Saban carried little weight.

Conference titles and national championships are history; what matters now is who’s cutting the biggest check. According to CBS Sports’ December 2025 report, DeBoer and his program lagged behind in NIL spending power. 

Analysts Carter Bahns and Chris Hummer put Crimson Tide in the “Good, but maybe not as elite as you think” category. As the transfer portal class ranking dragged Alabama down, the clock’s already ticking for DeBoer, as warned by a Crimson Tide great. 

Kalen DeBoer gets a bitter Nick Saban reality check from an Alabama alum

DeBoer already has enough on his plate fighting the standard set by the GOAT, Nick Saban. On top of that, the Crimson Tide does not have a billionaire backing the program of Mark Cuban’s stature in Indiana to compete for and secure player commitments.

Earlier, Alabama’s reputation was enough to keep the players locked in. As soon as the NIL and transfer portal era was introduced in 2021, players had the chance to test the waters elsewhere if they did not get to start immediately. Alabama alum Roman Harper shared how tough it is to now adapt to the modern landscape, which is why Saban decided to retire.

“Alabama fans live in fantasy, La La Land, right?” said the Alabama great. “That they have been so great for so long, college football is not what it was four years ago. It’s a reason why Nick Saban left. It’s a reason why Nick Saban lost two games the last three or four years of his coaching career every year. And so it’s hard.”

Back when Nick Saban dominated the college football circuit, nobody could touch the Crimson Tide. They won the national championship in 2020, and since Saban left, there’s been no success. Hence, Kalen DeBoer’s struggles in the portal prove that even Alabama’s historic legacy clout can’t keep top talent in-house.