Kalen DeBoer reacts to Alabama missing College Football Playoff

Alabama was in the discussion for the final College Football Playoff spot until the end. However, ultimately the Crimson Tide came up short in Year 1 under Kalen DeBoer.

Kalen DeBoer spoke about Alabama losing out to SMU for the final College Football Playoff spot during a press conference on Sunday. He revealed that in the future Alabama has to make sure it doesn’t put the decision in the hands of the College Football Playoff committee.

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“Got to make sure it’s not in other people’s hands, keep ourselves focused on that next year. Just knowing that the process doesn’t always end up how you think it is, how you think it’s gonna,” Kalen DeBoer said.

“Looking forward to what lies ahead with our bowl opportunity. Obviously hoping that it was going to be more than one game but we’ve got one more game together and going to make the most of it.”

Alabama had a complicated CFP resume. The Crimson Tide had impressive wins over Georgia, South Carolina and LSU. But they also lost to Vanderbilt, as well as to Oklahoma by three touchdowns.

Kalen DeBoer also addressed Sunday how he thinks his team will respond in the bowl game. The Crimson Tide are set to play Michigan in the ReliaQuest Bowl on New Year’s Eve.

“It’s been a busy day. We went from first kind of understanding what the situation was going to be as far as not being in to talking to a few of the guys and still not knowing what our bowl game was. And then really right into our banquet and just finished it up,” Kalen DeBoer said. “I think just around our program, I feel like the culture’s in a good place. The mindset of guys, they’ve taken a lot of pride in what we’ve gone through and what we did this year, whether it’s just the course we stayed on and the way they stuck together. But also the resume ain’t perfect, but there’s a lot of big moments in the season and big wins that we had this year.

“So again, there are leaders and those leaders expressed nothing but positive things as far as moving forward, whether it’s guys that are on the back end of their career or guys that are going to be important for us moving forward, same roles or even bigger roles.”