Everything Kalen DeBoer said after Alabama's 24-3 loss at Oklahoma

NORMAN, Okla. – No. 7 Alabama lost to Oklahoma, 24-3, on Saturday at Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. After the Crimson Tide’s third loss of the 2024-25 season, Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer spoke to reporters in Norman. Here is everything DeBoer said after the game.

DeBoer’s opening statement…

“Obviously, extremely disappointed, frustrated. We worked, I thought, extremely hard all week, putting a plan together. Guys, good energy, excited to come here on the road. We’ve just gotta play better. We’ve gotta be better in all ways. There’s some simple things, uncharacteristic things, I think, that happened early in the game where we didn’t get the momentum on our side, and then, really, it comes down to the end of the first half, them scoring a touchdown and then the turnovers really kind of changing the momentum of the game there.

“Turnovers were gonna be a key. We said that coming in. We knew taking the ball off them, like we did early, was gonna be big. And in the end, it flipped the other way and we turned the ball over. Credit to them. They did a nice job with their run game, staying on the field early, in the first half, especially. I thought there was some things that we continued to tweak and adjust to do a better job against it and what they were doing there. Obviously, the game got away from us in the middle of the third quarter there.”

DeBoer on if he got an explanation on the illegal touching penalty on Ryan Williams…

“They said it was illegal touching, so someone would have had to been covered up, ineligible.”

DeBoer on the impact Deontae Lawson’s exit had on the defense…

“Any time you lose a great player like Deontae, it’s gonna affect you. His leadership, he is the guy that makes a lot of the calls on the football field. Just seems like he’s always in control. We have trust and belief in the guys that come in with JJ. Those guys take a lot of reps, and he’s played a lot this year, too. But Deontae, any of your captains, your top players, it’s gonna hurt you and it’s gonna hurt you just demeanor emotionally but also just the execution on the field.”

DeBoer on what he said to Jalen Milroe after back-to-back interceptions…

“I think stepping back, I just felt like early in the game, there was different things. I mean, drops, just flat-out drops. Balls we lost in the lights. Just different, uncharacteristic things, weird things that happened. And I thought he was actually putting the ball where we needed to. We just needed to help him out a little bit. The screen pass, they jump it and you have to assume that those blocks are gonna happen and you’re reading a different defender. And then there’s the pick-six that goes the other way. I don’t know if just didn’t see him or predetermined things, but there’s still a lot of game left, and I felt like a lot of things he was doing, he was fighting and battling and doing a lot of things well for our football team. We just all needed to be a little better. 

“So I thought he kept battling. I looked in his eyes and think he’s come a long ways all season long, and just the way he wants to go out there and keep leading the team and guys kept fighting for him. That’s just pretty much what I shared with him, just have no regrets. Go out there and keep swinging.”

DeBoer on his message to the team, keeping things together the rest of the year…

“That’s the commitment we make to each other when we come in here. When you sign up to play for Alabama, you make that commitment to each other and the brotherhood. There’s nothing in that room right now that says that there’s anyone saying it’s someone else that needs to be better. It’s win and lose as a team. And we made that commitment not just for each other but that we’re gonna finish, and we’re gonna finish everything we do. There’s a big game next week, so we’ve gotta regroup, stick together. The right things are said in there by the guys as much as they’re hurting, and just keep playing and have pride in who we are and finish the job.”

DeBoer on Lawson’s status…

“I don’t. It’s gonna be a lower-extremity injury. We’ll evaluate further here when we get back.”

DeBoer on what led to Alabama’s struggles running the ball…

“I have a lot of confidence in what we can do running the football. But I also think you’ve gotta credit a little bit of who they are and what they do defensively. We knew it would be a physical game and just some times where we’ve gotta stay on blocks, maintain blocks. In the second half, again, the game gets away from you. Some of the things that we just weren’t quite as clean on maybe in the first half and you wanna be better at, you’re not able to call. And then the penalties there in the fourth quarter get you behind the sticks, as well. It becomes a pass-happy game to try to catch up and lengthen the game to try to give yourself a chance to win. 

“But yeah, we didn’t run as well as we would have hoped early in the game, and I think it’s a little bit of both. I think usually what I’ve seen from us is that the 2- or 3-yard gains become four or five and some game-breakers, and we just never got to those game-breakers because we didn’t get a chance to really hammer away enough with the normal down and distances and the normal flow of the game.”

DeBoer on Oklahoma’s Jackson Arnold, Xavier Richardson…

“That was the story for them was those guys inside, outside, different ways. Just moving the chains and hitting the explosives that they had. It seemed like they were always falling forward, and again, there was explosive plays that they had. You’ve gotta credit the toughness that they had. I think he carried it over 20 times in the game, both of them right around that. So credit to those guys on staying with their game plan, doing what they needed to do to win.”

DeBoer on what Oklahoma did to make things tough on Milroe…

“I go back, again, I felt like there were some thing that are pretty easy that just didn’t happen for us, too. Just short little concepts that would have moved the chains, easy throws and catches. Some drops early that take you off the field. Some third-down conversions that we missed on. An explosive where, again, the ball, we can’t find it. Those were some of the momentum things that early in the game, kind of took the wind out of our sails a little bit, put them on the field. They kind of start churning the yards on the ground, winning the time of possession there. We couldn’t get over the hump tonight, and that’s the unfortunate thing.”

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