Everything Kalen DeBoer said to kick off ULM game week

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer spoke to reporters on Monday morning of ULM game week. Here is everything DeBoer said to kick off game week No. 2.

DeBoer’s opening statement…

“First of all, I just want to send our condolences out to Lee Roy Jordan’s family just (with) the passing over the weekend. Just I know a huge part of this program in the past here, and I want to send, from our coaching staff and our team, our condolences.

“And then just hitting up the injury updates, because I know you guys will ask on those. Jah-Marien Latham had a lower-body injury. We’ll see how he progresses. He’ll be day-to-day throughout this week. And then Isaiah Horton, really proud of the way he fought through a lower-body injury that he had, but just kept fighting through Saturday. Was certainly limited, still feeling that a little bit, but he just continued to compete. He’s someone that it doesn’t surprise me that’s what we saw. We expect him to be full-go by the end of the week. We’ll build up as he can tolerate here early on. Ryan (Williams) will go through the concussion protocol throughout the week. He’ll have a day-to-day situation.

“Jaeden Roberts, I think everyone probably saw he was fully cleared. He’s been out there on the practice field for some time now. But just for everyone to feel good and taking full-go reps. He traveled. He could have gone in the game if we needed to, but didn’t have him play out there. Tim Keenan will be week-to-week just kind of moving forward, but he’ll still be out this week. And Jam Miller is still week-to-week, coming along real nicely with his progression. So optimistic there, here in the short future.”

DeBoer on a lack of effort on the defensive side of the ball…

“Yeah, we were certainly disappointed in some effort situations that happened. I think they came in different ways. Some of it’s just flat out gotta pursue, gotta get there. It surprises you sometimes when it happens, especially with certain guys, because of the effort that they put in day in and day out. But I think there were some other things that come across as hesitancy. That’s the way I kind of put it. I think after the game, probably would follow that up and say that there was a couple times where we just gotta be quicker to get to a spot and do our job.

“We might be setting an edge and just, again, hesitant with the communication, kind of confirming, or just we believe and have that confidence in what we’re doing. There really wasn’t much. It was really, I think I spoke maybe that there was a couple looks that we hadn’t really practiced. I don’t really feel like that was really bad at all. After watching the film, I thought we did a good job preparing. I thought the guys had a great week.

“Now you just gotta translate the numbers that you see on the football field that were in different jerseys and believe that that scheme, those Xs and Os that you saw in your week of preparation. is who it is in a Florida State uniform. I think you saw it as the second half went along. They started really kind of getting into it. It was too late. It just put us behind the eight ball. Now you gotta be perfect in everything you do and put us in a spot where we had to play catch-up, and on the road, that’s certainly hard to do. Those guys were feeling it there with Florida State. It was a chance for them.

“Again, together as a team, we gotta find a way to overcome one side of the ball. We need that drive for a touchdown, getting it done defensively. We need to get that big stop, getting it taken care of right there. We didn’t start way back in the game. That’s what you gotta do when you have a 17-point deficit. Again, we shouldn’t get to that spot, but inching our way. Something that we did better than I felt in the offseason – we’ve talked about the Oklahoma game last year and how you gotta try to get seven points, get close and put some pressure on them.

“We were right there, 24-17. Really, we should have the ball 3rd and 11 on defense with nine minutes to go and just how far we had come in that, probably, previous 10 to 15 minutes of the game, I felt like, man, this thing’s gonna happen, and that there’s a real belief and confidence that I think was building on the sidelines. You gotta finish. You gotta get the stops. It comes back to just that effort, but it has to happen from the very first play.”

DeBoer on how to combat the lack of effort, intensity…

“These guys, they’re great kids. They got high character. They wanted it bad. And so it’s just showing them. A lot of times, they already know, and making sure that we continue to be intentional. That’s a word that I use a lot, and it’s gonna be something I use a lot more this week again. Just be intentional on what we’re trying to accomplish with quality reps and making sure that every rep is done at a high level, from the effort to the execution.”

DeBoer on Ryan Williams playing in the slot; how he played at FSU…

“I think we’ll continue to work and figure that out. There’s just been so many bright moments with him inside. He never really got going in the game, before getting hurt. We’ll continue to have to make sure we’re moving him around. Last year, he had a great season, you know, and a good foundation as far as us understanding what he can do on the outside. We really felt like what we had seen, especially in the fall — limited practices in the spring, but in the fall — we really liked how he could get match-ups in our favor, and really pose some problems.

“You can get him from one side of the field to the other. You can get him deep, you can get him out in the flat quick. There’s a lot of different directions he can go. Get the ball, even in the run game a little bit. We’ll keep assessing that as we go through here. This week will be a little trickier, with him getting limited opportunities, but that’s gonna allow somebody else to step up and kind of continue to figure out the dynamics and how we feel best with the receiver corps and the people that should be out there in those spots.”

DeBoer on ‘great week’ of practice prior to FSU; how much he self-scouts practice weeks…

“I mean, I think our guys did. Defensively, I felt like we were pretty honed in, gone back and actually looked at the practice film on some of those reps that we took that we took that were pretty much identical to what we saw. Just trying to figure out why were we one step — why was our communication a little slower? It’s just, again, these guys have already shown me yesterday how bad they want it, and how they’re going to respond.

“I really feel like the tone in the locker room after the game, at least from my standpoint and how I can address the team is completely different than a year ago. We don’t need to speak in those terms, but it feels different. There’s more of a flat-out upset. I can use a lot of different words to explain it. Really upset about how it went. These aren’t learning moments anymore. This is us and our program and again, we understand the situation we put ourselves in, and that we’re in, but it is a long season. Let’s take care of business this week and that’s gonna set up the next week. Then we’ll worry about that. That’s been our philosophy all along, but we really got to live it now.”

DeBoer on Ty Simpson’s claim of complacency after first touchdown…

“I didn’t hear those comments. But I guess, just, the only thing I can look into is human nature is when it goes well on your first drive and you end up in the end zone, that there’s something internal, right? It’s just human nature. But I also know that we challenged the guys that it was a lot of work to get the ball down the field. It took nine minutes. As great as that was, and that’s awesome to take that much time off the clock, keep their offense off the football field, that’s what you want to do. You had to put play after play after play — I believe it was 16 of them together.

“I guess to me, we went out there and executed a lot of drives. We just have to do a better job of sustaining it. If there’s a complacency I guess maybe not taken for granted, you get down into their territory, that’s automatically gonna happen. You got to make it happen. You got to do it, and we got to do it. I guess if I’m really reading into what he’s saying, it’s that you got to finish. You got to do it and nobody else is going to magically put it in the end zone for you.”

DeBoer on penalties and correcting them…

“There’s a lot of consequences that go along, especially the foolish penalties. The ones that happened after the whistle and things like that. That will continue to be the case. There’s just got to be better judgment when you get into those spots, and you know the quarterback will be protected and you can’t live in that gray area. All offseason that was the point of emphasis, and we can’t afford to have every guy have his one-off time where it’s like, OK, that was his mistake. Next game it’s a different guy. We got to learn and understand — we talk about everything from what we see in other games that happen in college football and the NFL, whether it was out of season or even here after the Week 0 games. It’s certainly addressed, and now the guys just got to do it. And when they don’t do it and make those mistakes, then there’s consequences that we’ve had and already dealt with here, going into this week.”

DeBoer on maximizing response from players…

“What the guys need to do is cut it loose. They just need to go play. Block out outside noise, whatever that is, enjoy and love the game and play it the way it’s meant to be played. That was my message yesterday, is don’t overthink this. Just go out there and ball out. They know what they’re doing, they need to trust and believe in their training, trust and believe in the reps and all the things, walk-throughs, all that they’ve done, all the work they’ve put in, and go out and reap the rewards from it. Go have fun doing it. Don’t overthink this, just go out and play, do what you love to do. Don’t listen to this person that’s in your ear telling you this and that, go out there and just do you. That’s what these guys got to do. Enjoy it. Play with an edge, too, right? We’ve got something to prove. There’s obviously a piece of it where this weekend we fell short of what we feel like we’re capable of doing, what our potential is. So go out there and prove it, too. But don’t put added pressure on yourself, have fun, get it done.”

DeBoer on playing like you practice…

“Yeah, I completely believe you play like you practice. That’s probably what surprises you even more, when you’re assignment-sound and have great communication. We talk about how a confident team is one that communicates well. You’re confirming what you do to the guy behind you, in front of you, next to you, you’re alerting if you’re on defense what the motion is. We see some guy tipping off that he’s gonna go across the formation, we’re one step ahead on what that coverage structure might rule to. Communication and then obviously the effort, even just urgency and transitions from drill to drill. It’s not gonna be stressed — I can’t even say it can be stressed anymore because we stress it every single day in every moment of practice. It’s just gotta translate to gamedays.

“A lot of it is, just go out there and enjoy it, have fun. You’ve put the work in, you guys are doing it. I always compare the offseason training in the weight room, that we’re not building to be a track team and take our running to more running, we’re taking our skillsets, our body and how we’re developing, and also the urgency in those transitions from one station to another, we’ve got to translate that to football. How you run on the field, how you run off the field, how you start, how you finish. The mindset that goes into all that. I really believe our guys do that at a high level. So, we’ve gotta make sure we keep stressing those things that we’ve stressed and make the corrections here going into this week.”

DeBoer on Ty Simpson’s decision-making…

“I think there were a couple of time where he probably could have avoided having to get to that point by just ripping it. Just trusting himself. The guys were where they needed to be, the reads happen. That comes along, right? Just getting into the flow. I know they want verification on, ‘this is what we practiced,’ first game of the year. But just cut it loose. When you see the read, it isn’t like they’re putting 12 guys on the field. There’s only 11 out there. When this structure goes a certain way and it is what you practiced, trust and believe in it. So then what it does is it forces him into that progression or that read being missed, and now the next step, which I think you’re referring to in taking off and scrambling.

“There’s a time or two where he could have made some decisions that were better, but he also had kept some drives alive. Especially the first one, I thought he did a nice job. He came up short right there at the end of the game, that was a tough one where he came up a few inches short, but the effort was there and you could see that from trying to fight for every inch he could to keep that drive alive. He’s gonna learn from it, Ty wants it, no doubt. He’s a guy that takes ownership himself, and that’s what we do from the coaching staff on down to our players. Going into this week it’s just always reassessing win or loss what we need to get better at, what our strengths are, and then how we’ve got to progress and what the plan should be moving forward.”

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