Kalen DeBoer: Alabama developing ‘swagger’ as season progresses

Kalen DeBoer and Alabama got their swagger back! If you are a fan of internet culture and memes, you’ll understand that reference.

In any event, Alabama came back with a vengeance Saturday night, dominating LSU 42-13 in Baton Rouge and moved closer to a College Football Playoff spot and kept their SEC title hopes alive. It was a needed win for DeBoer, who definitely felt some heat with two losses already on the docket.

If that swagger can carry into the playoffs, watch out for the Crimson Tide.

“You’re just trying to stack days, you know,” DeBoer said. “And along with that, when you do that, there’s a little bit of a swagger. I really don’t feel like we’ve ever been over confident or complacent in any way. We haven’t done enough here since we’ve been here to get to that point. So any of the things that have happened over the course of the season, I just attribute to the things where maybe it’s not gone as we’d hoped. 

“I really attributed just part of our growth, you know, growth together and just staying the course. And you can see, slowly, the little things coming together and we got to reload it all and do it all over again, do it this week, back it up, keep improving. But it does make you feel good to see the progress that maybe is happening in practice, but it doesn’t show up in games. And now, you know, it’s starting to show up in the big moments.”

Alabama about to get on a hot streak?

Alabama developing swagger could be similar to what DeBoer did with Washington last season. The Huskies beat Oregon twice, including in the Pac-12 title game, to spearhead a run to the national title game.

“Our experiences that we have individually, we always remember them and the learning moments that you go through,” DeBoer said. “For our team, they weren’t through that. But for me, you do take in those times, whether it’s that season or 10 years ago — there’s just things you go through that were part of the process then that you try to remember, try to figure out what worked and what didn’t to keep the team moving in the right direction. 

“Honestly, it’s really simple. You’ve got momentum to build off of, and you make sure you take advantage of it, and then you also continue to keep the pedal down, keep focused on what you believe in, and we’ve been doing that. We were doing that then, that year, and we’re doing that now.”