The Walter Camp Coach of the Year

Kalen DeBoer, head coach of the University of Washington Huskies, is the Walter Camp 2023 Football Bowl Subdivision Coach of Year. 

The Walter Camp Coach of Year is selected by the nation’s 131 Football Bowl Subdivision head coaches and sports information directors.  DeBoer is the first coach from Washington and the fifth from the Pac-12 Conference to earn the award.

DeBoer has led the Huskies to the College Football Playoff, the most wins in program history, and the Pac-12 Championship.  Washington has posted a perfect 13-0 record this year and owns the nation’s longest active win streak at 20 games. No. 2 Washington (13-0) will face No. 3 Texas (12-1) in the Allstate Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1, 2024, in a College Football Playoff Semifinal.

Washington’s perfect 9-0 conference record made DeBoer only the second Pac-12 coach to reach that number, matching Chip Kelly, then at Oregon (and the Walter Camp Coach of Year), in 2010. Washington sealed its second all-time spot in the playoff with a 34-31 win over Oregon in the Pac-12 Championship Game, its second win over Oregon this season.  Washington is the only school with multiple wins over schools currently ranked in the top eight and is 5-0 against teams that were ranked in the AP Top 25 at the time of the game. The Huskies have excelled in close games, with their last nine games decided by 10 points or fewer.

Two Washington players – quarterback Michael Penix, Jr. (First Team) and wide receiver Rome Odunze (Second Team) – earned Walter Camp All-America honors in 2023.

The 49-year-old DeBoer is the first Washington coach to win 11 or more games in consecutive seasons and is now 24-2 in his two seasons at the school and 36-8 overall in four seasons as a Division I head coach, including a 12-6 record in two seasons at Fresno State. DeBoer has an overall 103-11 record as a collegiate head coach. In five seasons at Sioux Falls, his alma mater, from 2005-09, he was a remarkable 67-3 with three NAIA national titles.

As a student at Sioux Falls, DeBoer set records in both football and baseball. During his football career, he compiled 3,400 yards and 33 touchdowns on 234 career receptions – all school records at the time – and played on the 1996 NAIA Division II National Championship team, which beat Western Washington in the final. He also played baseball for the Cougars, batting .520 (still a school record) as a senior in 1998. His career average of .492 is still best in USF history as are his 37 career homers, and .944 slugging percentage.

A 1998 graduate of the University of Sioux Falls with a degree in secondary education, DeBoer and his wife, Nicole, are the parents of two daughters, Alexis and Avery.

Walter Camp, “The Father of American football,” first selected an All-America team in 1889. Camp – a former Yale University athlete and football coach – is also credited with developing play from scrimmage, set plays, the numerical assessment of goals and tries and the restriction of play to eleven men per side. The Walter Camp Football Foundation (www.waltercamp.org,@WalterCampFF) – a New Haven-based all-volunteer group – was founded in 1967 to perpetuate the ideals of Camp and to continue the tradition of selecting annually an All-America team. 

The Foundation is a member of the National College Football Awards Association (NCFAA). The NCFAA was founded in 1997 as a coalition of the major collegiate football awards to protect, preserve and enhance the integrity, influence and prestige of the game’s predominant awards. The NCFAA encourages professionalism and the highest standards for the administration of its member awards and the selection of their candidates and recipients. For more information, visit the association’s website, www.ncfaa.org

Walter Camp Coaches of the Year

2023 – Kalen DeBoer, Washington

2022 – Sonny Dykes, TCU

2021 – Luke Fickell, Cincinnati

2020 – Jamey Chadwell, Coastal Carolina

2019 – Ed Orgeron, LSU

2018 – Nick Saban, Alabama

2017 – Mark Richt, Miami

2016 – Mike MacIntyre, Colorado

2015 – Dabo Swinney, Clemson

2014 – Gary Patterson, TCU

2013 – David Cutcliffe, Duke

2012 – Brian Kelly, Notre Dame

2011 – Les Miles, LSU

2010 – Chip Kelly, Oregon

2009 – Gary Patterson, TCU

2008 – Nick Saban, Alabama

2007 – Mark Mangino, Kansas

2006 – Greg Schiano, Rutgers

2005 – Joe Paterno, Penn State

2004 – Tommy Tuberville, Auburn

2003 – Bob Stoops, Oklahoma

2002 – Kirk Ferentz, Iowa

2001 – Ralph Friedgen, Maryland

2000 – Bob Stoops, Oklahoma

1999 – Frank Beamer, Virginia Tech

1998 – Bill Synder, Kansas State

1997 – Lloyd Carr, Michigan

1996 – Bruce Snyder, Arizona State

1995 – Gary Barnett, Northwestern

1994 – Joe Paterno, Penn State

1993 – Terry Bowden, Auburn

1992 – Gene Stallings, Alabama

1991 – Bobby Bowden, Florida State

1990 – Bobby Ross, Georgia Tech

1989 – Bill McCartney, Colorado

1988 – Don Nehlen, West Virginia

1987 – Dick MacPherson, Syracuse

1986 – Jimmy Johnson, Miami

1985 – Fisher DeBerry, Air Force

1984 – Joe Morrison, South Carolina

1983 – Mike White, Illinois

1982 – Jerry Stovall, Louisiana State

1981 – Jackie Sherrill, Pittsburgh

1980 – Vince Dooley, Georgia

1979 – John Mackovic, Wake Forest

1978 – Warren Powers, Missouri

1977 – Lou Holtz, Arkansas

1976 – Frank R. Burns, Rutgers

1975 – Frank Kush, Arizona State

1974 – Barry Switzer, Oklahoma

1973 – Johnny Majors, Pittsburgh

1972 – Joe Paterno, Penn State

1971 – Bob Devaney, Nebraska

1970 – Bob Blackman, Dartmouth

1969 – Bo Schembechler, Michigan

1968 – Woody Hayes, Ohio State

1967 – John Pont, Indiana