Everything Kalen DeBoer said to kick off Vanderbilt game week

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer spoke to reporters on Monday of Vanderbilt week. Here is everything DeBoer said to kick off game week No. 5 of the season.

DeBoer’s opening statement…

“Good morning and just a couple things about Georgia, just a good win for our team. I feel that’s really what it was, it was a team win on both sides of the ball, special teams as well all being involved in how we got it done. It wasn’t perfect by any means. Sometimes, a lot of times in those kinds of games it’s going to be ugly at times. It’s just a matter of continuing to play, continuing to play hard, being resilient. I thought our coaching staff did a really nice job of putting a plan together and our guys really buying into that in the bye week. Just staying the course and staying focused. The buildup of the game not being so much on the front end, but really emotionally and mentally, just being prepared for the right time, late kickoff on a Saturday night. Just a great environment there and I think our guys rose to the occasion.

“I appreciate how they handled all the adversity that came their way. They left it on the field. That’s what I asked of them. I asked them to empty the tank and they certainly did that. So they played for each other. I think that’s one of the themes that they’ve really focused on and everyone’s counting on them to do their job. If they don’t do their job they’re letting their teammates down and I’ve actually asked them to really understand that piece as far as I’m counting on them and I understand they’re counting on me too. So a lot of young guys continue to get more and more experience, on both sides of the ball, playing a number of true freshmen and their experience from Week 1 now through four games has really shown up and we’re going to continue to need those guys and some redshirt freshmen, as well, are really playing a lot, really important towards our success.

“I appreciate the fans that went over there to Athens to support us and obviously coming back home to Bryant-Denny, a place that is just a great vibe, and we’re going to need everything they’ve got against a very good Vanderbilt team coming up here on Saturday. Coach Lea, a ton of respect for him. I’ve known him for a long time. I knew a year ago, you could see and feel the positive movement that they had inside the program. You could see the style of play, it being team football. They continue to do that. 5-0, a ranked opponent coming into our house. Just got to continue to keep the focus on us. Have to keep ignoring the noise, that’s been a huge strength that’s become of our football team, and they’ve got to continue to do that. Some guys continue to learn what it takes to come each and every week to play football here in the SEC.”

DeBoer on if last year’s Georgia win created overconfidence vs. Vanderbilt…

“I’m not going to argue against that. You’ve got to handle success and you’ve got to come back every single week in this league. Every coach I talk to at midfield, that’s what the conversation’s about is here you go again. You’ve got to reload mentally, physically, emotionally to during the week get prepared at the highest level you possibly can and go play ball. Physically, it’s going to be a battle and mentally, you’ve got to be ready to respond, and so yeah, we didn’t handle success last year well. You can’t argue that. I also think they did a nice job executing in critical times and made plays. No different this week, right? And our success that we had on Saurday, none of it matters. None of it carries over. The third down stops, the third down execution on offense doesn’t matter. Points don’t carry over, every game is it’s own game. There’s new matchups that are going to be presented in this game that are different than last week. So just like I talk about every play being its own play, this game is its own game.”

DeBoer on how Alabama can get better in the run game…

“I feel like it is taking steps. I feel like it’s on both sides of the ball, just better execution. Guys understanding the job, but just keep executing. There were some times we were closer, but you didn’t necessarily see it lead to these eye popping numbers or these explosive plays, but I think there were times when, especially at the end of the game, third quarter were four and five-yard runs at the end of the game, the last drive on first down, getting seven yards when you know that’s what’s going to happen is it’s going to be a run play and getting a first down and then doing it again. Getting five on the next set of downs. Those are important on hard yards and so the execution, just from the beginning, we want to continue to get better. It starts with the mindset that that’s what it’s going to take every single week. Just to practice, practice, practice, practice reps is what it’s all about.”

DeBoer on Alabama’s ball security to start the season…

“Being intentional. Repetitions in ball security circuit we do every single day. Showing our players, we showed clips during the bye week of other teams losing games in moments where just a little bit of the elbow not being tight enough to the rib cage, or even a player having it high and tight but it just not being tight enough. Locking the wrist. Technically doing the things on such a high level all the time. Being real truthful in all the times in practice or showing times in game where there’s a time or two where those fundamental things aren’t done perfect. It’s being intentional. It’s being intentional and running to the ball defensively to cause those turnovers too. It’s effort. It’s fundamental. I think our guys are really understanding you win or lose games because of those things. It’s one of those things that was one our keys to victory, winning the turnover margin, and we did that.”

DeBoer on winning the penalty battle at Georgia; what can be carried over from that… 

“And to do it on the road in that environment, proud of the guys the way they continue to stay the course. I know they’ve got it in them. The want-to is there. It’s just not living in the gray area. That’s been a common theme for us, going back to February when we broke all the ways and things you needed to do to win. We worked on the category of penalties. Focusing on where we fell short a year ago. Focused on other teams, NFL teams, college teams, making sure we covered all the scenarios. You’re never going to cover all of them. New ones pop up all the time. Just doing your best to make sure the guys understand you can’t relax for one moment. You get on the boundary, you get on the sideline. You got to be smart, you know. You’ve got to figure out, can I hit him or not, on the quarterback. Just locked in on the caedence, and when there’s noise, just like we had on Saturday, guys did a nice job, just focusing on what we repped and locked in on doing their job.”

DeBoer on Qua Russaw and Jah-Marian Latham…

“Qua, he has a broken foot and surgery and everything. And so he won’t be out for the season, but it’ll be an extended amount of time here. 
And then Jah-Marien, just with everything, he’ll be out for the season, so it’s unfortunate. Just love that, love both of those guys, but, Zebbo, as we refer to him, Jah-Marien’s just, he can have a healthy recovery. He’ll recover fully, and so that’s the main thing, the big picture of everything, but unfortunately, we won’t have him back this season.”

DeBoer on how Ryan Williams has handled criticism…

“He knows he’s just got to keep progressing, keep developing, keep working. And so what I know I see on the football field and practice every single day is a guy that is working hard at it. We know how skilled he is, how big of a threat he is, any time when he’s on the field. I thought he responded well. Had some nice catches and third down conversions, had a ball late in the half there that was an explosive that helped us cross midfield, put points on the board. 
So I thought his response was really good. He stayed focused, and I think really what he’s locked in on is the team. He’s not going to be perfect, just like any other guy. We expect a lot out of him, and we’ve built that up for him, and he certainly wants that. But you just got to keep taking steps, keep getting better, and he will. 
He just, keep working through it, but he’s, his desire to go out there and be a team player, block, I mean, the want-to factor’s there. You’ve just got to keep working on the fundamental things.”

DeBoer on facing a veteran Vanderbilt offensive line without James Smith for a half…

“That’s something we’ll talk more and more about with the team as we go through the week, starting tomorrow with James. We do have to cover for him early. When he comes in, he needs to be locked in on what’s been happening, so it is him feeling out the process when he gets into the game. But Tim just as the week went on, I think earlier in the week, he was a little sore, things like that. But when he got to game day, just really, I thought he played well. 
He was an important part of our success and just a big hammer up in there, just holding down gaps and keeping the movement to be very minimal. So he played, in our grading, he played a nice game all around. So I don’t know if I had a true number of snaps I was expecting him to play, but I know he didn’t play less than what I thought. If anything he played more.

“So we certainly do need to rise to the occasion as your second question, just we got to rise to the occasion and keep asking more out of our young guys against the veteran group, like you said, and I think we’re doing that. I think we guys are straining in practice. I’ve been on the young guys as much as anything, not just at that position, but across the board for them to understand, you know, the urgency that they got to have, just in meetings and on the field, the strain that it takes and then now they’re seeing, I think you get into game day in these big games, the SEC games. They’re getting it, they’re figuring it out.”

DeBoer on guarding against an emotional letdown; if he will wear his black hoodie…

“I think we all know that you don’t win because of that, and you don’t lose because of that, but I get it.

“I think for us, you’ve got to learn from what you’ve been through, right? And so, the handling of success last year and then what had happened for the different reasons it happened, and then where we’re at now and the opportunity that we have in front of us, and what we’ve gone through, you take your past experiences and you have to just keep learning. And you’ve got to keep understanding how we got now back, got our feet somewhat underneath of us, OK, and have a little bit of momentum, OK.  And it’s just really, again, being intentional. I refer to that in different ways here. Moving with purpose. That’s a common theme right now. And just the energy and the edge that our guys have played with the last three games, we cannot lose sight of how important that’s been. And we know every team that comes into our place, every team we play is getting amped up and excited to play Alabama. And we’ve got to take on that challenge, not just on Saturdays, but Sunday through Friday, and be ready to go.”

DeBoer on the response to adversity compared to recent road games…

“Having gone through it and just continuing to not make it bigger than it is, keep it simple, but having gone through it and talking through it and just staying positive. And I guess on the sideline, the best way I can explain it is I didn’t ever feel when one side of the ball or the other was struggling, or couldn’t finish a drive offensively, or had a letdown defensively, and you’re frustrated because of an explosive run or something. I felt like it was all about the next play. I felt like it was all about, ‘Man, I want to get back on the football field, and I know we can do this, and I’m going to just keep locked in on my job.’ And then each side of the ball, trusting the other one is going to just give everything they have and leave it on the football field. And walking out of there, I don’t think we were going to have any regrets on anything because they were going to leave it out there.

“And so that’s all I can ask of them is just to give 100% effort. And 99 out of 100 isn’t good enough. I mean, it’s got to be 100 out of 100 because that’s something you can control. And so, we’ve been pointing those things out. Whenever we fall just a little bit short, it’s not OK that you gave 100% on all these plays in practice, and this one play, would’ve, could’ve, should’ve. That’s the one that’s going to hurt you. That’s the one that’s going to kill you. So, just proud of the way these guys have responded. I think the game certainly showed that. I felt that on the sideline. We had less guys travel. We had less staff on the sideline. And so it was about those 74 players, it’s about the coaching staff, and these guys kind of adopted an us-against-the-world mentality.”

DeBoer on Conor Talty’s response; special teams through four games…

“I think that kick in particular, I think we’ve got to have better execution all the way from the snap to the hold to the kick. All three of them could do a little bit better and cover for each other. The kicker obviously can recover and help make it better. It wasn’t that much error on the other guys to where he couldn’t make up for it. But they all three, with that execution, I think, can do a better job. He’s been solid, I think, as special teams whole. I think the real slip-up was against Wisconsin with a couple of things with the kickoff. And again, we put ourselves in that spot to where we had to kick from our own 20 and cover a lot more space.

“I was really pleased with the way we controlled their return game, with Branch being a threat, both in the punt return and the kickoff returns. And so we had a squid opportunity. We pinned them deep at the end of the first half and didn’t let up in any way to give them any life there to feel like they could go down and even get three points on the board. Kicking off after we held them deep on the first one that they tried to return, really they just were all about taking the ball to 25, fair catching it. And so, I think we’re doing a solid job.

“There are so many young guys on our special teams units. And I’m not afraid to put it out there because I think they’re executing at a high level. Lotzeir Brooks, you watch him run down there on kickoff. You see him on offense, but you see him doing his things there. Dijon Lee, those guys, I mean, they’re seeing their opportunities to go out there and play at a high level and put some good film out there for people to see.”

DeBoer on if Alabama will seek a medical redshirt for Jah-Marien Latham…

“We haven’t gone down that road yet. Really haven’t seen him in person. Just communicating. I know he’s back here around the facility finally at the beginning of the week. But yeah, we haven’t gone down that road yet, so don’t have an answer for you there.”

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