Chris Kapilovic thought the whirlwind had ended.

The Alabama football offensive line coach had found his landing spot at Baylor University in mid-December, and was more than glad to be there. He had just spent the 2023 season at Michigan State, where head coach Mel Tucker was first suspended, then fired, last September following allegations of sexual harassment. For Kapilovic and Tucker's other assistant coaches, that meant working under an interim coach with the pending doom of dismissal, knowing they likely wouldn't be retained at season's end. They weren't.

Naturally, Kapilovic was happy to put the turmoil to an end when offered a job at Baylor; he bought a home in Waco and settled his son at a new high school.

Then it happened: "Alabama called," he told his wife, Fiona, and son, Colin.

Both of them, Kapilovic said, were on board with the move; a move he wouldn't have blamed them for balking on. A move he's not totally sure he could've made absent their support. After all, they'd just made a move a few weeks earlier. For Kapilovic, it was the final twist in what had been a dizzying year at Michigan State.

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"I'm at my house at 11:30 p.m. and I see a tweet that our head coach had an improper relationship, and you know at that point it's 'we're probably done here,'" Kapilovic said of Tucker's September ouster. "Then you go through a tumultuous year with all kinds of issues. You're like 'Alright, we've got to find the place we're going to go,' you finally pick the place you think is best for your family, you get in there, you get your kid in school right away because he's a junior, going to be a senior, you buy a house, then all the sudden two weeks later, you get a call from Alabama."

Kapilovic considered Alabama as a dream destination in the coaching profession. He knew its tradition, and had coached as close to the Capstone as Alabama State, where he served as offensive coordinator from 2003-05. He was excited to accept the Alabama job despite having just arrived at Baylor, but his voice, he said, wasn't the only one that mattered.

"To my wife and son's credit, they looked at me and said 'It's Alabama. We're ready to go.' That made it much better and easier for me," Kapilovic said. "You'd have to have your head examined to turn down Alabama, but I felt bad for my family because it had been such a tumultuous year. ... If they both had said 'I can't do it,' I would've really had to think about how we should approach that."

Kapilovic's son Colin plays at Northridge High, and the coach was able to see his son's team beat American Christian Academy earlier this month, winning 17-14 in overtime. Kapilovic said Colin's transition to Northridge has been a seamless one, and that the family has taken well to Tuscaloosa.

One more move, apparently, was the right move.

"For a coach, our life is the same. We're in the submarine all day and night," Kapilovic said. "And if your family's happy, that's one more thing you don't have to worry about."

Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of Crimson Cover TV on WVUA-23. Reach him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on X.com @chasegoodbread.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: For Alabama football OL coach, accepting the job was a family affair