Everything Kalen DeBoer said after Alabama’s 45-17 win at Kentucky

LEXINGTON, Ky. — No. 12 Alabama defeated Kentucky, 45-17, on Saturday, September 12, at Kroger Field. After the SEC opener, Crimson Tide head coach Kalen DeBoer spoke to reporters. Here is everything DeBoer said after a strong second half helped Alabama advance to 2-0. DeBoer’s opening statement… “Far from a perfect game, but one of those games that just I’m really proud of the guys, and I just told them that. And again, it’s not indicative of the things that we gotta clean up, but we faced a lot of resiliency in different ways. A lot of things just, even just stuff you don’t expect to come up. Losing comms even in the third quarter from coordinator to quarterback, just about everything that you had to face was thrown at us. So, just really proud of the way the guys fought. “I felt at halftime, it wasn’t this crazy energy that we had to have. It felt like it was kind of almost just getting locked in, getting refocused, and just knowing the game was gonna be ours. We just gotta go out and execute. And the turnover battle, obviously, that was a big part of the swing. First half, giving those guys, giving Kentucky a chance with the interception for a touchdown — obviously, we got one back — we know that that’s a huge part of what winning football’s all about. “So, Daniel Hill getting 100 yards. Just saw that, and that’s exciting. I wanna mention Jireh Edwards, 19 days out of a broken arm post-op, going out there, getting a sack. We got a lot of tough dudes. And that’s toughness physically. That’s toughness mentally. I think there’s some emotional maturity. We had some penalties, but I don’t think it was anything as far as just foolish late hits and things like that. “So, we’re gonna get better as we keep playing. And even just getting young guys out there snaps, offensively probably in particular. Getting guys those reps, getting familiar with everything. That’s gonna be part of where we’re at right now, early part of the season. So, doing what we did and winning the second half builds belief, builds trust. You gotta go through those experiences really for it to shape and build your team.” DeBoer on Alabama’s ability to run the ball in the second half… “I felt like the ability to run the ball was there. There’s a couple outside runs that we took some negative plays on, and then Keelon [Russell] had the sacks. We had the penalties, and so we were behind the chains a lot, which really kept us from being able to find the groove. Sometimes Keelon, in our RPO game, just needs to hand it off and let these guys wear them out. So, those are all learning experiences that we’re gonna be able to watch the film on. And he can, from a management of the game in those areas, he’s gonna learn. And we can do some things for him, too. I mean, we’ve taken needless pressures on sprint-outs, and we just gotta block the edge to give him the edge, and we can’t do that. It’s not that hard. So, there’s some things that we get better. And again, it’s younger guys that are gonna learn from their mistakes, because I know the want-to’s there, and we got the athletes to do it. We got smart guys that will get it done.” DeBoer on how he saw Keelon Russell respond to early mistakes… “He stays cool and calm. He believes in himself, and that’s evident. Sometimes he’ll go and try to make a play, and we just gotta help him understand the situation and how to keep us on the field. I don’t wanna take his aggressiveness away from him, because there’s some plays that he’s made out there, too. So, it’s a fine line. He’s gonna go help us win games, and he did that, I thought, played winning football in the second half. And the first half, you just gotta make sure you find a passing lane on screens, so the ball can’t get tipped. And some of those things at the end of the first half, just don’t give up the needless points with the interception. Don’t force things. But he’s a fighter, and he believes in himself. And he’s won a lot of football games at a high level. I know it was high school, but he understands what that pressure’s all about. And so, it was great to see him come out the second half and play the game he did.” DeBoer on if Russell needs to throw the ball away when nothing is there… “Yeah, and we’ve gotta do a better job sometimes of — it’s not the offensive line always either. We just gotta do a better job of giving him something clean. And some of our, again, I kind of mentioned it earlier, but some of our RPO stuff, it’s OK to just hand it off. And he’s an aggressive kid, and we love the things that he can bring to the table on that. But when there’s guys in your face, and kind of maybe from the backside, you gotta throw through them, and it gets knocked down, just hand it off. And I think there were some running lanes even that we might be able to see. I’ll have to watch the film. But yeah, and last week it was when you’re running, making sure you slide. And I think there’s some things like you’re mentioning, just making sure you throw it away. Live to see another down, keep yourself upright, all those things we talk about. But I did feel like he made a lot of improvements from last week to this week, especially before the ball’s even snapped. And so, there’s those areas, and now we can continue to work on the execution when the ball is snapped, and just knowing how to manage each down and distance, each situation that comes his way.” DeBoer on the defensive adjustments that were made at halftime… “Let’s see, we gave them the seven points, right, at the beginning. We really gave them another three on the field at the end of the half. They hit this one scramble, I guess. So, I felt like we really were doing a good job of keeping them under wraps defensively most of the game. And then when we started getting the lead, I think the momentum, and now we started playing from the lead, they can’t play their game. They’re forced to throw it a little bit more, and then our pass rush gets home. And credit our special teams, too, getting a stop on their fake punt and being alert, and guys making plays there. So, I thought our defense, there’s always gonna be calls, and you save some for the second half. And I think our defense did a good job of continuing to evolve throughout the game. But I think we had a pretty good plan and a pretty good handle on things from the get-go. We put seven points up on the board ourselves, as well.” DeBoer on how the players handled the road atmosphere… “We know that wherever we go, we’re gonna get everyone’s best. It’s just Alabama on the road. That’s the environment. It’s gonna be amped up. Add on top of what Kentucky’s trying to do here with everything new to them, and a win last week, and trying to keep that momentum. I really feel like most of our guys, because there are a lot of new faces, that have to learn and feel it before you really can say that, ‘Oh, we can handle it.’ But we have a lot of guys that get it, that have been through it last year, maybe even two years now, going on Year 3, to where when these games are amped up, and there’s noise, and there’s talk, it’s not something where we’re losing our confidence. It’s something where it energizes us. So, we appreciate that. I felt like we had a lot of juice coming out of the locker room to start the game. Now again, we gotta execute better, and there’s things that we can’t do, mistakes we made. But all week of practice, I thought, again, we elevated from Week 1 to Week 2 in practice. I thought it was a great week. There was no way, whatever happened in this game, that it was gonna be because we weren’t locked in, and we didn’t have a good week of practice. So, I thought the guys showed that. They invested in it. And again, we made some mistakes. We paid the price for it in the first half. We did a nice job playing our game in the second.” DeBoer on which players stepped up in the locker room at halftime… “That’s a good question. I felt like they’re, man, I saw [Zabien Brown] going around. I’d expect that. I felt like Ryan [Coleman-Williams] was calm with his side of the ball, and ZB came over. And it’s not always just cranking it up and screaming and hollering. Sometimes it’s just like calm, cool and collected. And I think guys like ZB got that. And Bray [Hubbard], I saw him, I think, in the third quarter. During the game, I saw him over there doing it the right way with the offense, too. Just got their back, and I think Keelon went over to the other side and just owning some of the things that he fell short on in the first half that put us in a tough spot. So, I think that was kind of some of the things that stuck out to me. I think there was more guys than that, too, that just caught their wind and getting ready to go out there and knowing it’s not just a two-quarter game; it’s a four-quarter game.” DeBoer on if it was a conscious decision to run ball in the second half… “Again, I think it was just, we felt like the run game was there. I mean, I really felt that. Again, we got behind the chains with penalties in the first half. We got sacked a couple times. And I felt like there was some execution that was happening, that there were some lanes. And sometimes when you give a quarterback the green light to have the RPOs, and you can see that, hey, it was blocked up well, you live with that. And so, just kind of continue to balance that, but I felt like the run game was there in the first half. It didn’t maybe show up on the scoreboard or the stat sheet, but as the second half went along, I think they helped take some pressure off Keelon, staying ahead of the chains, not having the penalties that we had in the first half really allowed us to play a good half of football. Field position was a big deal in the second half with the shorter fields, as well. And then again, the run game, Daniel — I can envision Daniel running towards our bench there, almost scoring, then hammering it in to finish the drive. Man, that helps out a quarterback a lot.” DeBoer on the momentum shifting after a second-half stop on defense… “Those are big stops whenever you have… And again, when we faced one — and I’m losing track now, we had the one where we felt we had got off the field. They went for a fourth down and then fumbled it, and then had to go back out there. And that was a tough one to swallow right there because we mentally felt like you got the stop and then you gotta go out there. I know that was some of the points that we gave up there too. So I credit our defense. I think those moments when you get to fourth-down opportunities, they did a good job, got the momentum turned. I mean, third down for us right now, you can tell that we’ve been working on it, and guys understand the scheme. It isn’t like we weren’t working on it two years ago and last year. But I think we’ve only given up one third down now in two games, is that right? It was one third down in two games. And so, that’s a credit to the guys going out there, playing hard, playing fast. Calls have gotta be good, too, gotta be helpful. But just there’s a good belief and confidence in our guys going out there and getting the job done if you just do your 1/11.” Not a member, Alabama fans? Join BOL today! Have you subscribed to BamaOnLine.com yet? You can sign up for ONE YEAR of premium access to our extensive Alabama coverage for just $59.99! 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