Alabama defensive coordinator Kevin Steele reportedly to retire
Alabama is reportedly looking for a new defensive coordinator.
According to a report from ESPN on Monday night, longtime college football coach Kevin Steele is set to retire. Steele served as Alabama’s defensive coordinator in 2023 in his third stint as an assistant under Nick Saban with the Crimson Tide.
Save for a four-year period as the linebackers coach of the Carolina Panthers in the 1990s, Steele has coached at the top level of college football since he was a student assistant at Tennessee in 1980. He’s coached at four SEC schools, both Clemson and Florida State, and was Baylor’s head coach from 1999-2002.
Steele’s time as a head coach did not go well. He took over a Baylor program that was mired in doldrums and the Bears were 9-36 in his four years with the team. Baylor won just one Big 12 game during that span.
He went to Baylor after he was with the Panthers from 1995-98. Steele’s most memorable moment with the Panthers may be when linebacker Kevin Greene grabbed Steele by his jacket during a discussion.
Steele came to Alabama after he spent the 2022 season as Miami’s defensive coordinator. Alabama allowed 19 points per game in 2023 and gave up five yards a play. The Crimson Tide held opposing quarterbacks to fewer than 200 passing yards per game and less than a 60% completion percentage.
The longtime defensive coordinator replaced Pete Golding as Alabama’s defensive coordinator. Golding ran Alabama’s defense from 2018-2022 before he moved to Ole Miss in January of 2023.
Assistant turnover is nothing new for Saban; a third defensive coordinator in three years would be remarkable or a possible sign of turmoil at another program. Instead, it’s a familiar scene. Current offensive coordinator Tommy Rees is Alabama’s seventh offensive coordinator since the start of the 2012 season, and the Crimson Tide had four offensive coordinators in four years from 2016-19 after Brian Daboll (2017) and Mike Locksley (2018) each had one-year stints before moving on to bigger jobs.
