Kalen DeBoer praises toughness Alabama showed in win vs. Georgia

Alabama is back in the good graces of college football fans around the nation. After a slow start to the season, the Crimson Tide notched a gigantic win over the Georgia Bulldogs in Week 5.

That turned down the heat on coach Kalen DeBoer a bit. Afterwards, the Alabama leader focused on his team’s toughness, praising the Crimson Tide for getting the dub in Athens over the weekend.

“I think there’s a toughness that’s being built,” DeBoer stated, during his postgame press conference. “We’re not there yet—there are still things we can do better. We talked about the mental, physical, and emotional toughness it was going to take. That was one of the first keys to victory we put up at the beginning of the week.

“We knew turnovers and takeaways would be critical, and we knew execution in critical situations would matter.And we did that. We took care of the football. We executed in big moments — got the fourth down stop, executed on third down, got off the field. Especially in the first half. We were good in the red zone offensively, going four-for-four I think, with three touchdowns.

“So all of those things showed up. But there’s still a toughness that our guys are continuing to build on. We’ve still got a long way to go, and they know that.”

DeBoer had been putting Alabama back together a bit following their season opening loss prior to this past weekend. They dominated Wisconsin in Week 3, but fans couldn’t be sure the Crimson Tide had really changed for the better until they downed Georgia on the road Saturday.

With the victory, Alabama is firmly in the CFP race, and Paul Finebaum believes DeBoer has been lifted off the hot seat: “Kalen DeBoer is really phenomenal in the sense that how many times does this guy come back from the dead?” Finebaum said, via The Matt Barrie Show. “It’s just unreal to think that his road record is bad, but he is 2-0 against Kirby Smart.

“The bigger number is Kirby Smart is 0-2 against him. Saban doesn’t matter anymore. The schedule is still tricky, but I would say, overall, Alabama to go into October with one loss — not bad.”

Next up for Alabama is Vanderbilt, with a chance at revenge on the docket for DeBoer and company. They’ll square off at 2:30 p.m. CDT, with the game airing live on ABC. We’ll see if the Crimson Tide can keep their momentum rolling.

— On3’s Nick Kosko contributed to this article.