What Kalen DeBoer Said Following Alabama Football's Loss to Oklahoma

NORMAN, Okla.–– No. 7 Alabama was on the wrong end of a chaotic day in college football as the Crimson Tide fell to the Oklahoma Sooners in a road battle on Saturday night.

After a stellar past three weeks on both sides of the ball, Alabama couldn't move the ball on offense or stop the run on defense against the Sooners.

This loss gives Alabama three on the season, all but certainly taking the Tide out of the College Football Playoff race, despite the format increasing to 12 teams after a decade with just four programs included.

After the clock hit zeroes and a field storm by the Sooner crowd ensued, Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer spoke about his team's performance during the postgame press conference.

Full Transcript

Opening statement:

“Obviously, extremely disappointed, frustrated. We worked, I thought, extremely hard all week, putting a plan together. Guys, good energy, excited to come here on the road. We’ve just gotta play better. We’ve gotta be better in all ways. There’s some simple things, uncharacteristic things, I think, that happened early in the game where we didn’t get the momentum on our side, and then, really, it comes down to the end of the first half, them scoring a touchdown and then the turnovers really kind of changing the momentum of the game there.

“Turnovers were gonna be a key. We said that coming in. We knew taking the ball off them, like we did early, was gonna be big. And in the end, it flipped the other way and we turned the ball over. Credit to them. They did a nice job with their run game, staying on the field early, in the first half, especially. I thought there was some things that we continued to tweak and adjust to do a better job against it and what they were doing there. Obviously, the game got away from us in the middle of the third quarter there.”

On if he got an explanation for wide receiver Ryan Williams' illegal touching penalty:

“They said it was illegal touching, so someone would have had to been covered up, ineligible.”

On the impact of captain and linebacker Deontae Lawson’s exit due to injury had on the defense:

“Any time you lose a great player like Deontae, it’s gonna affect you. His leadership, he is the guy that makes a lot of the calls on the football field. Just seems like he’s always in control. We have trust and belief in the guys that come in with JJ. Those guys take a lot of reps, and he’s played a lot this year, too. But Deontae, any of your captains, your top players, it’s gonna hurt you and it’s gonna hurt you just demeanor emotionally but also just the execution on the field.”

On what he told captain and quarterback Jalen Milroe after throwing back-to-back interceptions:

“I think stepping back, I just felt like early in the game, there's different things. I mean, drops, just flat-out drops, balls we lost in the lights, just different, uncharacteristic things, weird things that happened. And I thought he was actually putting the ball where he needed to. We just needed to help him out a bit. The screen pass, they jump it. You have to assume that those blocks are going to happen and you're reading a different defender. But then there's the pick six that goes the other way. I don't know if he just didn't see him or predetermined things, but there's still a lot of game left, and I felt like a lot of things he was doing, he was fighting and battling and doing a lot of things well for our football team. We just all needed to be a little better. So, I thought he kept battling. I looked at his eyes, and I think he's come a long ways all season long and just the way he wants to go out there and keep leading the team and guys kept fighting for them. That was just pretty much what I shared with them. Just, have no regrets, go out there and keep swinging."

On how the team stays motivated with little left to play for:

"That’s the commitment we make to each other when we first come in here. When you sign up to play for Alabama, you make that commitment to each other and the brotherhood. There’s nothing in that room right now that there’s anyone saying that it’s someone else that needs to be better. It’s win and lose as a team. We made that commitment also not just for each other, but that we’re going to finish. We’re going to finish everything we do. There’s a big game next week, and so we’ve got to regroup and stick together. The right things were said in there by the guys, as much as they’re hurting. And just keep playing and have pride in who we are and finish the job.”

On Deontae Lawson's injury status:

"It's going to be a lower extremity injury, you know, continue to evaluate further here we get back."

On the struggles in the running game:

"I have a lot of confidence in what we can do running the football, but also you got to credit a little bit of who they are, what they can do defensively. We knew it would be a physical game. And some times where we got to stay on blocks, maintain blocks. In the second half again, the game gets away from you. Some of the things that we just weren't quite as clean on maybe in the first half that you want to be better at you're not able to call. And the penalties there in the fourth quarter gets you behind the sticks as well. So it becomes a pass happy game to try to catch up and lengthen the game, to try to give yourself a chance to win. We didn't run it as well as we would have hoped early in the game.Usually, what I've seen from us is that the two or three yard gains become four or five and some game breakers and we just never got to those game breakers because we didn't get a chance to really hammer away enough with the normal down and distances and the normal flow of the game."

On the success of Oklahoma's Jackson Arnold and Xavier Robinson:

"I mean, that was the story for them. Those guys, inside, outside, different ways, just moving the chains and then hitting the explosives that that they had. It seemed like they were always falling forward. And, again, their explosive plays that they had. So you got to credit the toughness that they had. I think he carried it over 20 times in the game — both of them right around that. So credit to those guys on staying with their game plan, doing what they needed to do."

On what Oklahoma did to make things difficult for Jalen Milroe:

"Well, I go back, again, I kind of felt like there were some things that are pretty easy that just didn't happen for us — short little concepts that would have moved the chains, easy throws and catches, some drops early that take you off the field, some third down conversions that we missed on, an explosive play where the ball we can't find it. And those were some of the momentum things that really kind of took the wind out of our sails a little bit and put them on the field. They kind of start churning the yards on the ground, winning the time of possession there. And we couldn't get over the hump tonight. That's the unfortunate thing."