Everything Kalen DeBoer said after Alabama's 28-7 loss to Georgia

ATLANTA — No. 9 Alabama lost to No. 3 Georgia, 28-7, in the SEC Championship Game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. After the Crimson Tide’s third loss of the season, head coach Kalen DeBoer spoke to reporters. Below is everything DeBoer said in his postgame presser.

THE MODERATOR: We’ll open with Coach DeBoer making a statement. Then we’ll start with questions for players.

KALEN DeBOER: Just got to credit first of all Georgia, what they did today. You got two teams, congratulations to them, Coach Smart, but you got two teams out there, know each other pretty well over the last two seasons, what the strengths are. Two teams that fight. Two teams that play hard. Got to this point, laid it out on the line.

I’m proud of our guys. I’ll never question the heart, the fight, what these guys bring. You can see at the end of the game these guys still giving everything they got, both sides
of the ball, all phases.

Fell short today, but proud of the season, getting to an SEC Championship, getting to this spot. A lot to build off of.

Q. Kalen, what is your pitch for why you’re still a Playoff team?

KALEN DeBOER: You look at the games we played throughout the season. If you’re really looking at this game, it was a 14-point game with seven and a half minutes to go and we had the ball. You can look at things that didn’t go well. We gave them four short fields.

I don’t want to take anything away from what Georgia did. The field position battle is part of it. Four short fields, that’s a testament to our defense being resilient. One of those touchdowns, if we’re really worried about the score, probably punt it on your own 11.

I’m here to win a SEC Championship. If you lose by one or you lose by more, it’s still a loss. That’s what I was caring about. We’re here to win a SEC Championship. We can’t get worried about how much do we lose by…

That’s what it was about. We’re here to win. That’s how we play. Again, it was a 14-point game. We had the ball with seven and a half minutes to go against a really good team that knows us well and we know them well.

I thought our defense did a heck of a job going against them. One thing we didn’t really do is take the ball off ’em. The one turnover they got, short field.

Again, that’s football. That’s the way I looked at this game. If this game applies to and takes away from our résumé, I don’t think that’s right. I really don’t. I think the precedence has been set. I don’t know how you can go into a conference Playoff game when you’re the No. 1 seed, did all these things throughout the year, and playing in this game against one of the top teams in the country, as well, how that can hurt you and keep you out of the Playoff.

Again, we’ve done what we’ve done all year.

Q. You mentioned field position. Talk about that offensively.

KALEN DeBOER: Yeah, it was back and forth there early, right? Couldn’t get it going there. They punt to us, then they shot punted us back. I’m trying to remember there. There was a possession there. They scored on their short fields, got the 14-point lead there.

Yeah, the field position is a big deal. It’s a huge deal. Makes it harder. You’re swimming upstream, for sure. Our guys moved the ball there at the end, still almost scored another touchdown. If we’re really worried about point differential, we’re right there.

You’re not going to take the points and kick a field goal just to make the score look better. That’s not what it is about. It’s about winning a conference championship. Credit Coach Smart and what they did. They had a better day today.

Q. Do you know what you need to do to get Ty’s confidence back or is that not an issue?

KALEN DeBOER: I think it’s just having some continuity in practice. If I went through, I don’t think this is what this is about, but if I went through the guys who we are gluing together, I know that locker room has the same situation going on, but you talk about Parker Brailsford, who if you give these guys two weeks to get ready, what the health will look like for these guys, Parker Brailsford, Germ, Daniel Hill, I’m not saying what he’s playing through, but two weeks, it will be a different Daniel Hill, okay?

You execute or you have a lack of execution in games because you probably didn’t have everyone out there working together in practice. So Dewberry will be back, 100%, I mean, he was at the end of the week. Geno would be back. He got taken out of the game there. He’ll be back. I can keep going on down the line.

More reps for our other running backs. Fully expect to have Jam back. Two of our three losses are when Jam doesn’t play. Really not a chance that he felt like he could play today. He’s not that far away. It’s not the one, to me, injury that keeps you out, holds you back. Even a chance to — could be tight, but a chance even Kevin Riley. That might be a little bit tight, just to be real with you.

There’s a lot of guys. I think that’s what it really comes down to, is playing with their guys. We got into this game today. The execution just wasn’t quite as crisp. There’s usually a reason for that.

Again, defensively the same thing. Kelby Collins, LT, Z.B. in the game today dinged up. Dijon a little bit before the game with an evaluation we had where we had to hold off. All those guys in two weeks, considerably different football team, the one you would have seen earlier in the season.

Q. The punt block. Georgia’s not always played having eight guys up at the line. Was that something you have seen much? What happened on that play?

KALEN DeBOER: I can tell you exactly what happened. We got a new face in the spot. Obviously that’s LT
Overton’s position. Just tell you what it is. There’s a check we got to make. You got a new face in that spot. That’s what happened.

Again, getting guys more reps, getting guys back out there makes a big deal. I don’t fault our guys that were in that spot, doing everything they can. But there’s a check we got to make, one we make all season long. We missed it. They got an extra hat that we couldn’t block.

Q. Ryan Williams was able to break free a couple times in this game, but a couple times he was off the
field in some of the moments after that. Talk about the approach of Ryan Williams.

KALEN DeBOER: I mean, we were intentional in trying to get him the ball. We got four guys that really are working in the rotation. Someone is going to be out. If we go two tight ends, which we still like to do, there might be two guys out.

Ryan came out and had a great week of practice. He’s one of the guys that is pretty healthy. We were intentional. Made some plays, like you said. There’s more to be had out there the next time he gets a chance.

Q. Is it still the plan to have Coach Shepard continue with the team for whatever is next, or is it possible
you’ll have to be replacing him soon?

KALEN DeBOER: There will be a couple days. We’re going to try to make it go as long as we can. He might have to have a few days, especially early in the week here, where he has to take care of some things with his team.

That’s where my background with the position and just the offense and stuff, we’d be lighter here at the beginning of the week no matter what the situation was.

So yeah, we intend to do everything we can to have him with us throughout the course of the Playoffs. I know he wants that. Help him be efficient, helped him that way.

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