Kalen DeBoer is not worried about Chuck McDonald.
The four-star California cornerback is one of three players from Alabama football’s 2025 recruiting class who won’t enroll until the summer along with tight end Kaleb Edwards and defensive lineman London Simmons.
But DeBoer knows McDonald’s track record: the program he comes from, Mater Dei High School, which has produced cornerbacks like Zabien Brown and Domani Jackson, who have shown what the successful transition looks like.
DeBoer sees McDonald as a player who is “going to come in and do his thing.”
“He’s going to come in and fit right in with the group,” DeBoer said. “Because he brings length. That’s the thing that just jumps out at your right now across the board. You got some guys that maybe don’t have the extreme height, but our length in the secondary has changed a lot. Chuck will come add to that.”
It’s the room Maurice Linguist has built, the Buffalo head coach-turned-Alabama co-defensive coordinator who has filled the Crimson Tide cornerbacks room with his prototypical weapons: versatile, long and aggressive pieces that could see the field from day one.
“He’s just a guy in the building that just brings good juice and energy,” DeBoer said of Linguist. “He’s a pleasure to be around if you’re the head coach, a staff member. And that is certainly seen by our players, felt by our players.”
Heading into 2024, Linguist’s first season, he inherited a room of two scholarship returners from the previous season: Jahlil Hurley and nickel DeVonta Smith. He used an offseason recruiting haul of Brown, Jaylen Mbakwe, Zavier Mincey and Dre Kirkaptrick Jr., along with Jackson and nickel DaShawn Jones through the transfer portal to completely rebuild a room that finished with the third-best pass defense in the SEC behind Texas and Missouri.
It was a room, DeBoer said that “developed confidence” over the course of the season with its young players and new faces, allowing 182.2 passing yards per game and 13 passing touchdowns compared to 17 interceptions.
How Maurice Linguist changes Alabama football 2025 DB room
But Alabama’s cornerbacks room has not remained stagnant from a year ago.
It’s a room that’s seen versatility shift its pieces around with Mincey’s move to safety and the addition of Red Morgan to the cornerback room, along with the loss of Mbakwe to the wide receivers. It’s seen talent acquisition, adding five-star cornerback Dijon Lee, along with McDonald through the 2025 recruiting class, and Cameron Calhoun via the transfer portal.
But the main pieces remain. Jackson and Brown are both back as primary starters for a room DeBoer calls “completely different than it was a year ago at this time.”
“I know they got better throughout the season, so I don’t want to say they are drastically improving right now, but they are definitely playing with a lot of confidence,” DeBoer said.
“Now that room, all of a sudden, has got a high ceiling. But we also have created a lot of depth there.”
That ceiling has carried over into Alabama’s 2026 recruiting class, which includes Georgia five-star Jorden Edmonds and Gadsden four-star Zyan Gibson, utilizing a recruiting pitch that DeBoer says has become “attractive” to both athletes and their parents.
“He’s a guy with a lot of drive,” DeBoer said of Linguist. “He’s got high expectations. He gets after them. it’s some tough love that he brings, and they appreciate that because they want the same things he does, which is to be their best.”
Colin Gay covers Alabama football for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at cgay@gannett.com or follow him @_ColinGay on X, formerly known as Twitter.
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