DeBoer tells why Alabama moved away from former offensive line coach Chris Kapilovic

Alabama football’s head coach Kalen DeBoer provided some insight Wednesday on why the Crimson Tide decided to split from its former offensive line coach Chris Kapliovic.

Kapilovic coached the Tide’s offensive line for two seasons. News broke the Tide and Kapilovic were parting ways on last week. Reports of Alabama hiring Adrian Klemm to coach its offensive line next season surfaced days later.

DeBoer was asked about the Tide deciding to move on from Kapilovic while talking to reporters in Mobile at the Senior Bowl.

“It’s about production,” DeBoer said. “We know we gotta be better there, mindset and just execution, the details of the fundamentals that the guys need. A lot of new faces that are gonna be in that room. So, kind of a fresh start there.”

Alabama’s offensive line struggled to protect Ty Simpson at times during the 2025 season. He was sacked 28 times while playing behind Kapilovic’s offensive line. Alabama was also unable to establish a solid rushing attack behind its offensive front.

Former Alabama offensive lineman, Mike Johnson recently criticized the play of the Tide’s offensive line in the run game on Tide 100.9’s Millers’ Edge.

“One of the things that I hated about watching our offense try to run the ball was the timing,” Johnson said. “I think you guys on the defensive side called it being in phase, depending on how close the blocker was to the running back and whether or not you were trying to put hands on a blocker or get around the blocker and things like that. The timing has to be good on the offensive side of it. If you have a puller, you don’t want the running back eight yards behind the puller. You want the phasing, the timing of it to be really, really good… but the timing was always so bad. It felt like either the running back was running into the backs of offensive linemen before they could get off blocks or the running back was too far away, and the blocks were being beaten before the running back could get there.”

Alabama is hopeful the multiple changes it made to its offensive line via the transfer portal will change things upfront, along with the hiring of Klemm.