It was 21 years ago. In late 2002, right after a team from the state of Washington won the Pac-10 championship (shared with USC), Alabama had a head coaching vacancy it needed to fill. It chose Washington State Cougar head coach Mike Price to be its latest head football coach.
Here we are, all these years later. After a 2023 college football season in which a coach from the state of Washington won the Pac-12 championship, Alabama — its head coaching position open — has once again gone to the Pacific Northwest with its hire of Washington Husky head coach Kalen DeBoer.
When Price was hired in late 2002, he went to a strip club in Pensacola, Florida. His infamous lap dance created an uproar which prevented him from coaching a single game for the Crimson Tide. Kalen DeBoer will almost certainly avoid that kind of scandal, but the larger point people will keep mentioning is that DeBoer is a stranger to the South and its culture. It will be interesting to see how an outsider handles the Bama job.
Let’s see how people reacted to this hire, specifically through the lens of Mike Price in late 2002 and early 2003 at Alabama: