Kalen DeBoer enters Huskies’ national-title game with UW waiting with a rich, new deal
First, the Washington Huskies and Michigan Wolverines play for the national championship.
Next, each school’s athletic departments will make big-bucks plays intent on securing their coaches for more chances to get back to this title game.
Just two seasons removed from his first Football Bowl Subdivision head-coaching job at Fresno State, 49-year-old Kalen DeBoer had the Huskies (14-0) on 21-game winning streak entering Monday night’s national title game against Michigan (14-0) at NRG Stadium.
UW with then-athletic director Jennifer Cohen, who hired DeBoer from Fresno State to replace fired Jimmy Lake in November 2021, gave DeBoer a new contract following last season. That was for DeBoer winning 11 games in his Huskies debut season, including the 2022 Alamo Bowl over Texas. DeBoer’s current deal with the Huskies earns him $4.2 million and runs through 2028.
That’s the 44th-highest coaching salary in college football, per the USA Today’s annual database of public institutions. It’s seventh in the dissolving Pac-12.
DeBoer’s work is not the 44th-best in college football or seventh-best in the Pac-12.
That’s so obvious, new Huskies athletic director Troy Dannen knows DeBoer deserves another new contract. As in, last month.
“We’re in a good place,” Dannen told Adam Brenerman for his NextUp podcast from Houston.
Dannen replaced Cohen this fall after Cohen left Montlake to be USC’s AD.
Dannen said DeBoer could have entered Monday night’s title game with a rich, new deal, but the coach didn’t want to.
“Not interrupting right now, knowing that we’re in a good place,” Dannen told Brenerman.
“We’ve talked. We’ve gotten to where we probably could have done something a month ago, had he been motivated to get it done at the time — but keeping the focus where he wanted the focus, and, ‘We’ll get to the contract.’”
Nick Saban of Alabama is the nation’s highest-paid coach at $11.4 million per year. The top 25 highest-paid coaches all make at least $6 million per year.
DeBoer was 25-2 as Washington’s coach entering Monday night. He will command more than $6 million annually.
The 10th-highest earner in college football for 2023, as listed by Front Office Sports, was Josh Heupel at Tennessee. He made $9 million. Lincoln Riley at USC is estimated at $10 million per year, the sixth-highest coaching pay.
“I don’t want him going anyplace,” Dannen told Breneman of DeBoer. “This is a top-10 job in the country. I need to make sure it’s a top-10 job.”
Then Dannen joked: “If he aspires to be the coach of the Dallas Cowboys, eh, I maybe can’t beat that.
“But, you know, we’ll do a deal that that U-Dub’s never seen before,” Dannen said. “And not that it’s going to be an unprecedented deal in college athletics history. But, we’re breaking new ground.”
DeBoer was born and raised in Milbank, South Dakota, a town of 3,500 on the Whetstone River. He was a phenom playing football and baseball in Milbank. He played football and baseball at his home-state University of Sioux Falls. He began his head-coaching career at Sioux Falls in 2005. His team practiced on a campus empty lot that first year. It didn’t have its own home field.
DeBoer went 67-3 and won three NAIA national titles in five seasons leading Sioux Falls. His assistants there included Ryan Grubb, Chuck Morrell and Lee Marks. Grubb is DeBoer’s offensive coordinator for the Huskies who called plays for quarterback Michael Penix Jr. in the national title game. Morrell is UW’s co-defensive coordinator. Marks is the Huskies’ running backs coach.
One of Kalen and Nicole DeBoer’s two daughters, Alexis, signed in November to play for coach Heather Tarr and the national-powerhouse Washington softball team. Alexis DeBoer is a senior at Bellevue High School. She is ranked the number-11 prospect nationally in her high school class by Extra Innings Softball.
Saturday in Houston, two days before he coached Washington’s first chance for a national championship since UW won it all in 1991, Kalen DeBoer was asked if he’d like to have the new Huskies contract done by now.
His answer was consistent with what Dannen said last week.
“No, I’m good. Just because I just got a new contract a year ago,” DeBoer said. “And I think a lot of it, I just don’t want the distraction. Don’t want the distraction during this time of year. I think before the season, after the season is when you really like to iron out details.
“I’m really appreciative of Troy Dannen and a lot of it with him coming in as the new athletic director. He wants to make sure I understand I’m a priority, and I certainly feel like I’m a priority based on conversations getting started and a lot of the talk with the contract being a big piece of that.
“I feel like I’m in a great place, and obviously we’re focused on everything that’s been happening here in December: Pac-12 championship, Sugar Bowl and national championship.”
Dannen told Breneman he was eager to complete DeBoer’s contract soon after the title game.
““I’ll look forward to getting it done,” the UW AD said, “so people will quit asking me about it.
“The contract will get done. He’ll have everything in place to keep this thing rollin’.
Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan future
DeBoer’s counterpart Monday night Jim Harbaugh, a former quarterback for Michigan, reportedly has a standing offer from the Wolverines beyond this season: 10 years at $12.5 million per year.
The fact Harbaugh hasn’t signed that offer by now makes Michigan people nervous.
So the first question Harbaugh got at his press conference in Houston Saturday: How much will the result of this game influence your level of interest in coaching in the NFL afterwards?
The former coach of the San Francisco 49ers replied: “I have no idea about that. I couldn’t be more happy to be here. This is a tremendous city. They do everything big in Texas, and this is cool. This is right where we want to be. This is where we worked, to get there.
“Yeah, there’s a calendar — I’ll gladly talk about the future next week. And I hope to have one, how about that? A future, I hope to have one, yes. Thank you.”
Jake Butt played for Harbaugh in the coach’s first two seasons leading Michigan’s program. Butt became an All-American tight end for Harbaugh. He’s now a lead analyst for the Big Ten Network.
Butt doesn’t think it’s a slam dunk Harbaugh returns to Michigan.
Yes, the NFL’s coaching carousel began turning Monday, the first day after the end of the regular season. The Atlanta Falcons and Washington Commanders are the first two that now need new head coaches.
“He’s earned the right to do whatever he wants to do,” Butt told The News Tribune in a telephone interview last week. “I think he’ll do whatever he decides is best for his family.”
This story was originally published January 8, 2024 at 1:29 PM.
