Alabama Head Coach Kalen DeBoer Shares Personal Game Day Quirk, Routine

In addition to his "black hoodie of death," Crimson Tide head coach puts a challenge coin in his back pocket every game for good luck.

Alabama Head Coach Kalen DeBoer After Vanderbilt Win | Obtained from Alabama Football's X/Twitter

Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer has often worn a black hoodie during games since his arrival in January 2024, and the Crimson Tide is 14-2 when he dons the look.

The college football world has noticed this trend, and even Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz asked DeBoer a few days before the game October if he'd be wearing the "black hoodie of death." This good luck charm has a fairly large sample size, but DeBoer has another game day quirk that's helped him succeed.

“I do. I have a couple,” DeBoer said on the 'Hey Coach' radio show on Wednesday. “I still always go back to, I’ve stated that so I want to be careful to make sure I stay consistent on it, I still feel it’s about what we do preparation wise. But there are some things that are important to me.

“I have a coin. Really, very few people know this. I have a challenge coin that kind of goes back to actually Fresno State. Long story, but if you guys know what challenge coins are, I have one that’s Alabama football and one that’s made and I put that in my back pocket every game.”

DeBoer didn't say exactly when he first started putting the coin his pocket, but he was Fresno State's head coach from 2020 to 2021. He was also the Bulldogs' offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2017 and 2018 before two-year stint holding the same titles at Indiana.

DeBoer was also asked on 'Hey Coach' what his game day routine is during the hours leading up to kickoff.

“The game day home and away is completely different,” DeBoer said. “This week we will have, I don’t know, probably at least 100 recruits that are here. So even when I get back tonight to the facility, they’ll have them lined up to call to have our pre-meetings on the phone. Really, there’s recruiting, there’s walk throughs, there’s breakfast. Home games, that’s a lot of it.

"In the afternoon at the facility, we have recruit meetings in the locker room. In the coaches office down there we have recruit meetings. Literally, I go from those meetings to walking on the football field."

No. 4 Alabama football will play its sixth SEC game of the season and fifth at home against LSU on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. CT on ABC. It's safe to say that DeBoer will have the coin in his back pocket and the routine will remain the same before kickoff.