Alabama's 2026 Class Was Still Saban's Recruits — DeBoer Just Developed Them

The framing on this topic was that the 2026 draft would showcase Kalen DeBoer's inheritance going to the NFL. The truth is more specific, and more interesting: Alabama's 2026 class was developed by DeBoer but recruited by Nick Saban. Calling it DeBoer's class is half right. He coached these players in 2025. He did not sign them. The distinction matters, and it is the honest version of the post-Saban story.

The headline numbers were strong. Ten former Alabama players were selected in the 2026 NFL Draft, tying the Crimson Tide for the second-most of any school, and two went in the first round: offensive tackle Kadyn Proctor to the Miami Dolphins at No. 12 and quarterback Ty Simpson to the Los Angeles Rams at No. 13, one pick apart. Those two selections extended Alabama's streak of consecutive drafts with a first-round pick to 18 straight years — a run that began under Saban and that DeBoer has now kept alive.

Here is where the recruiting ledger complicates the narrative. Proctor was a 2023 signee who flipped from Iowa to Alabama on the eve of National Signing Day — a Saban recruit. Simpson arrived in the 2022 class — a Saban recruit. Together with Ohio State's Caleb Downs (No. 11), they gave Saban's 2023 recruiting class three of the first 13 picks in this draft. The players DeBoer sent to the podium were, almost to a man, players Saban brought to Tuscaloosa. DeBoer's developmental fingerprints are real. The recruiting credit is Saban's.

The rest of the class filled out across Days 2 and 3. Wide receiver Germie Bernard went in the second round to the host Pittsburgh Steelers at No. 47. The Dallas Cowboys took defensive lineman LT Overton in the fourth at No. 137. Cleveland double-dipped with interior lineman Parker Brailsford (No. 146) and linebacker Justin Jefferson (No. 149) in the fifth. Tight end Josh Cuevas went to Baltimore, cornerback Domani Jackson to Green Bay in the sixth, and the seventh round produced two more — defensive lineman Tim Keenan III to the Rams at No. 232 and running back Jam Miller to New England at No. 245.

The shape of the class is the part Alabama fans should study. Two first-rounders is good, but it is well short of the four, five, and six-first-rounder hauls Saban produced at his peak, when the Tide routinely owned the top of the draft. A class that is front-loaded with two top-13 picks and then does not produce another selection until the back half of the second round, with the bulk arriving on Day 3, is a thinner middle than Alabama's standard. The bamahammer framing — that the class was a microcosm of recent shortcomings — is fair.

The Ty Simpson selection carries its own debate. DeBoer publicly backed Simpson as a first-round talent, and the league agreed, taking him 13th. But Simpson was a polarizing evaluation — viewed by some analysts as the class's second-best quarterback and by others as a riskier projection — and his rise to the back of the lottery was as much about a thin quarterback market behind Mendoza as about consensus. The Rams bet on the tools and the DeBoer endorsement. Whether that bet pays off is a 2028 question.

The verdict on Alabama's first DeBoer-coached draft is that it was solid, streak-preserving, and built on Saban's recruiting. Ten picks and two first-rounders keep the brand intact and extend an 18-year first-round streak that is one of the sport's most impressive records. But the talent that produced those numbers was assembled by the previous regime, and the volume at the top has compressed from the dynasty peak. The real test of DeBoer's pipeline is not this class. It is the 2027 and 2028 classes — the ones he actually recruited. This was Saban's last meaningful contribution to the NFL, developed by his successor.