What Washington Huskies’ fans need to know about new football coach Kalen DeBoer

Former Fresno State coach Kalen DeBoer put in long hours and a lot of years to get to Washington, but has had a meteoric rise these past few years once he was plucked from Eastern Michigan by Jeff Tedford in 2017 to be the Bulldogs’ offensive coordinator.

DeBoer, who was hired by the Huskies on Monday, led offenses that fueled the greatest turnaround in college football, going from 1-11 the year before Tedford and DeBoer arrived to 10-4 with a Hawaii Bowl victory and then 12-2 with a Mountain West championship and a Las Vegas Bowl win.

No program in college football history had ever gone from losing 10 or more games in one season to winning 10 or more games in the next two seasons.

DeBoer’s offense made big gains in his first season and second seasons. In 2016, the Bulldogs averaged 329.3 yards and 17.7 points per game. In 2018, they averaged 421.5 yards and 34.6 points per game.

That led to a shot at the Power Five level, at Indiana.

In his one season there, the Hoosiers were fifth in the Big Ten in scoring offense, up from 10th. They also were third in total offense, up from seventh. They were second in passing offense, up from third, and their per-game average was up by more than 50 yards.

More from the DeBoer dossier:

Sioux Falls legend

DeBoer, who played and started his college coaching career at NAIA Sioux Falls, is from the coaching tree of Bob Young. Young, who is in the South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame, went 172-69-3 in 22 seasons at Sioux Falls, going through an undefeated regular season six times and advancing to the NAIA playoffs 10 times.

DeBoer was an All-American wideout at Sioux Falls, setting school records for career receptions, receiving yards and receiving yards, which have since been broken.

The Huskies’ new coach went 67-3 in five seasons at Sioux Falls, winning national championships and national coach of the year awards in 2006, ‘08 and ‘09.

Chuck Morrell, who coaches the safeties at Fresno State, played at Sioux Falls with DeBoer and in 1996 they won a NAIA Division II national title.

Morrell, who could follow DeBoer to Washington, finished his playing career in 1998, was a defensive assistant the following season and just two seasons later was the Cougars’ defensive coordinator.

At Sioux Falls, DeBoer coached 25 NAIA All-Americans and three national players of the year: quarterback Lorenzo Brown (2009), quarterback Chad Cavender (2007) and running back Nick Kortan (2002).

Gutsy play-caller

There were some big play calls in that DeBoer offense. One in particular came in overtime in the 2018 Mountain West championship game in the snow at Boise State. The Bulldogs were at the 1-yard line, third-and-goal. Quarterback Marcus McMaryion lined up under center, and Boise State called a timeout.

DeBoer switched it up, giving the Broncos a different, but familiar look and a play they had not seen to that point.

“We had two calls that I liked and the first one is the one we lined up in,” he said. “The one we scored on, we had run the same formation on second down and I was really just looking for one particular defender to see if it was going to be there and it looked pretty good.”

That second-down play was an inside run. But DeBoer wanted to give running back Ronnie Rivers a chance to win outside, and he did. Fresno State ran an option with McMaryion flipping the ball to Rivers, who skipped out of one tackle and went into the end zone for a 19-16 victory.

“I knew we could get a body on every single defender on the outside,” DeBoer said. “They were all crammed in down inside on the 1. It was a perfect setup for that play.”

Daughter, like dad, a power hitter

DeBoer and his wife Nicole have two daughters, Alexis and Avery.

The eldest, Alexis, is one of the top prep softball players in California, a power-hitting third baseman and shortstop. She is ranked as the No. 22 player in the nation in the 2024 recruiting class by Extra Innings Softball.

DeBoer also played baseball at Sioux Falls, and his name is featured all over the Cougars’ record book.

He hit .520 in 1998 and .497 in 1996, the first- and third-best single-season batting averages in school history. He hit 14 home runs in 1997 and 13 in 1996, the top two seasons in school history. He also has three of the top five slugging percentages in school history, with a record .991 in 1996.

After college, he played one season of independent league ball with Canton in the Frontier League.

Halftime adjustments

Ever wonder what the Huskies did in the locker room at halftime when they were stumbling through third quarter after third quarter? Washington scored only 37 points coming out of of halftime this season, and is one of the lowest-scoring teams in the nation in the third quarter.

DeBoer showed his chops making halftime adjustments in 2018, working with a veteran quarterback. The Bulldogs that season averaged 11.0 points per game in the third quarter, third-most in the nation.

Empowering players

In the wake of the killing of George Floyd by police in Minnesota and protests that followed, DeBoer said that he wanted the Bulldogs to feel empowered, to have a voice and to be involved in the community, to be engaged. He wanted them to develop as people, not just as football players.

“We’re in a unique role. I’m in a unique role, as a coach,” he said. “Our players are in unique roles as great leaders and role models that people look up to, and I’m extremely confident in how our players represent their families, our football family, our university and the Valley. We talk about that every single week when we meet and they’ve lived up to that expectation. I think it’s becoming who we are.

“We know how important the community is, not just on Saturdays when we step on the field. For that support to happen we know we have to give back and we can do that, as a college football program. The players, the staff, all of us together, we have this platform and we need to make sure that we’re using it.

“I would love for us to be a source of strength for others.”

Explosive plays

Like to see an offense taking shots down the field? Here are the number of explosive pass plays of 20 or more yards in DeBoer offenses at Fresno State and at Indiana the past five seasons:

2017: 54, second in the Mountain West

2018: 56, third in the Mountain West

2019: 60, tie for first in the Big Ten

2020: 27, third in the Mountain West*

2021: 53, fourth in the Mountain West

* Fresno State played just six games in 2020 and the two teams ranked ahead of it, San Jose State and Nevada, played eight and nine games.

Recruiting

Fresno State has not recruited a prep quarterback who made it through four years in the program since Derek Carr in 2009, an oddity for a program built largely on homegrown talent at the position with a long line of four-, three- and two-year starters.

But DeBoer appears to have ended that run when he landed Jaylen Henderson, who quickly won the No. 2 spot behind starter Jake Haener and played in three games, hitting 5 of 8 passes and rushing 14 times for 68 yards.

This story was originally published November 30, 2021 at 12:02 PM with the headline "What Washington Huskies’ fans need to know about new football coach Kalen DeBoer."