Michigan State football: Former OL coach Chris Kapilovic lands at Alabama

Former Michigan State football offensive line coach Chris Kapilovic has surprisingly landed a job at Alabama.

After Jonathan Smith took over at Michigan State football, most of the coaches on Mel Tucker’s staff left the program. Wide receivers coach Courtney Hawkins is, in fact, the only coach that Smith retained on his staff.

Many of the former Spartan coaches have found positions at other schools. This includes former offensive line coach Chris Kapilovic who found a really nice landing spot at a respectable Big 12 school. He became the offensive line coach at Baylor, who is one of the top programs in the Big 12.

On Monday however, Pete Thamel with ESPN announced that Kapilovic found a new coaching position, one that I don’t think anyone saw coming.

Sources: Alabama is set to hire Baylor offensive line coach Chris Kapilovic. He’s a veteran OL coach with time at Colorado, Michigan State and UNC.

— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) February 19, 2024

Chris Kapilovic hired by Alabama

With Nick Saban retiring, former Washington coach Kalen DeBoer became the new Crimson Tide coach. That change caused a shakeup with Alabama’s coaching staff as well, and Kapilovic got the unlikely call to become their offensive line coach.

This frankly doesn’t make much sense to me. Coach Kap never really found his footing in East Lansing, and the offensive line also never really improved like we expected. I don’t believe it was a lack of talent at the position, the players just weren’t developed like we expected.

Kapilovic has always been a sought-after coach, and that was seen at Michigan State too. During the middle of the Mel Tucker era, USC attempted to steal him from MSU. He ultimately chose to stay in East Lansing, but that shows he is a desirable coaching candidate.

It’s well known that Kapilovic is loved by his players. He is a well-respected person who players and parents want to have as their coach. But in my opinion that can only take you so far as a coach. At some point, you have to see results on the field, and that never happened at Michigan State.

I don’t have any ill-will for Kapilovic and I hope it works out for him at Alabama. But this is one move that really had me scratching my head.