Everything Kalen DeBoer said after his first Alabama spring practice

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Alabama held its first spring football practice Monday afternoon on the Thomas-Drew Fields. Shortly after the two-hour workout, head coach Kalen DeBoer spoke to local reporters at the Mal M. Moore Athletic Facility. Below is everything DeBoer said.

DeBoer’s opening statement…

“Man, all of a sudden, just like that, Practice 1 is over. It was a great day out there as first practices always are. Full of energy, full of excitement. This came on fast, and the practice went fast. Really clean. I was proud of our coaches and staff, as well as our players, just for really understanding kind of the things we were trying to accomplish today. Not just the execution on the football field when it came to running our concepts and our plays, but also just the transitions. It’s new for everyone, and I thought the guys did a great job. You could see the want-to, the desire. It was there through the effort that they gave. 

“So I thought it came together in a nice way. They protected each other, which is a big thing when it comes to our practice habits. We want to be healthy and be able to improve every play, and the only way to improve is by being out there. So I think that’s one of the key things in what doing what we’re doing all season long is being really intentional in what we’re doing, whether it’s building relationships or how we practice – creating those habits that are what we call championship habits. And I think they did a really nice job with that today.”

DeBoer on in-helmet communications…

“We were doing it today, so we had it out there. With supply and demand across the country, we aren’t able to have as many as what the max would be, but we had a couple quarterbacks with that in. I haven’t heard any feedback yet. I think early on there were a couple of times it was hard to hear, one way or another. I don’t think it was too soft. I think it was actually because it was too loud. But I’m sure that will get tested in our stadium at some point.” 

“I think there’s a lot of reasons for it that I know it can be positive. I don’t know that it answers all the concerns you might have when it comes to some of the things that people will say it automatically fixes – maybe sign-stealing and things like that. Because I think there are other ways it could go the other way, just with being intentional and trying to get a call and being able to echo it through your defensive headset. I could go on and on with that. But it was good. I think the quarterbacks were just getting used to it, I saw them a couple of times putting their hand up to their helmet and listening, but for the most part, it seemed clean.”

DeBoer on what has surprised him most about the job…

“I don’t know if it’s not that I expected it, but the thing I want to give our guys props about and props for is just how open they’ve been to everything that we’ve asked them to do. So it doesn’t surprise me. They’ve embraced all the little differences and nuances that different personalities bring, just different ideas that we have. It’s just been really smooth. And it’s a huge credit to our guys. I think our staff has done a good job of being aligned and on the same page and being organized to where it’s very clear, concise and the expectations are something that the guys can easily understand.”

DeBoer on Alabama’s Fourth Quarter Program…

“No, we kept it pretty consistent with what it’s been. The guys, you can tell it’s something that they feel really strong about. The energy just is there, from the beginning to the end. I think the key is, right, is taking that in the workouts when we’re in these early winter months here and transferring that over to football. That was the challenge today. We have a period at the end where we gather. We refer to it – I’ve done this many years now – we refer to it also as the finish or fourth-quarter period.

“Being able to connect to what they just did the last few weeks with the Fourth Quarter Program, it’s transferring it from the indoor and the workouts that they’re doing onto the football. I think that excites them. There’s been a lot of football games won because of the work that’s been put in because of that program, and they believe in it. It’s going to be important for us this fall, for sure.”

DeBoer on how the coaching staff can grow over the spring… 

“I told the players they’re excited to watch their own film now because when you bring in the concepts, whether it’s offense, defense, special teams, the coaching staff brings in your ideas, which usually involves cut-ups that are from the programs you came from. I just told the players when we broke down that we get to watch some of their film, which I know they’re all excited to do.

“From a coaching standpoint, to me, there’s a lot of pieces to our job, but right now, it’s for us to give them feedback. They need feedback on everything that happened. The grading on every play, and giving feedback to our guys so they can understand whether it’s that play or that practice or the session that we were in, whether it was a 7-on-7 period or a team period, even individual. Why did this drill go well? Giving feedback all the time, that’s a big priority for us as a coaching staff so that the guys can continue to understand the expectations and continue to improve.

“We have these maxims we refer to them, and one of our maxims is to have a relentless pursuit of continuous improvement. We don’t take any of those words lightly, from relentless all the way to pursuit of improvement. That’s the thing I’ll ask our guys tomorrow when we get together and review the practice. Was that the mindset? Was that clear from the beginning to the end?”

DeBoer on Michigan transfer Keon Sabb…

“You bring in a guy like him to be an impact player for you. His experiences, not just each and every play but also the experiences in leadership that as he’s here longer and longer that we would expect from him because of the level that he took his team to, winning a championship. That fits in well with what we’re trying to accomplish and what we’re trying to do.

“The character makeup aside from, of course, what we know is a great football player, he just is a really good fit for us. It’s been a pleasure getting to know him more and more each and every day, just seeing how he’s operating. Right now, he’s just going about his work, but you can tell he’s got that it factor. He’s got the leadership piece within him to where I know we’ll be counting on him this fall.”

DeBoer on the pillars he wants to build his program on…

“We have the maxims that we refer to them, and No. 1 is winners win because that’s what winners do. Winning, I know that’s a results-oriented piece to it, but what we really focus on is really what the winners do, and the winners in our program have an attention to detail. They compete. We go on and on. We have a list of those things. The habits they create each and every day will lead to the winning aspect. We’re never going to shy away from that being really important here at Alabama.

“The second one is, first be your best, then you’ll be first. In there, it’s be your best. When you bring your best energy, attitude and effort every day, and that’s the No. 1 and really only thing that we ask of our guys and the rest takes care of itself. When we do that, good things are going to happen, especially when you have the talent, when you have the coaching, the skill, the players that are within this program, good things are going to happen. In order to be your best, you have to have the relentless pursuit of continuous improvement that I referred to.”

DeBoer on benchmarks he looks for the team to hit through a first spring…

“I think every year is different, and you have to start over from scratch. If this is Year 2 for me here, I would still go back to the bare bones of setting down the expectations because we’re around 30 new players that are here in the program, and with that, you have to talk about what’s the tempo that we’re operating in practice when we’re in helmets and spider pads? What is it when we’re in helmets and shoulder pads? What is it when we’re full pads? You have to go back to those detailed conversations and lay out the expectations in a way that everyoneis on the same page because there are guys that took their first snaps as a college football player here. 

“I understand some of these guys and a lot of these guys did some things during the bowl season as early enrollees. But we would still start over from scratch and we would be intentional on our communication as coaches. We would be intentional about what we’re asking. And the new leaders that are having to step up, they may have been leaders before, but there’s a new dynamic in place because there are some guys that are gone that were pretty integral pieces to not just the production but leading this football team last year. So it all starts over, whether it’s the first year or second year or third year. It all starts over.”

DeBoer on if there is a message of everything being a clean slate…

“I don’t know if I’ve really said it in those terms, but you’re gathering information every day, right? I’m getting to know them. They’re getting to know myself and the staff. Those first impressions, I know, are important for those guys as they’re out there today competing and going and making plays. The intensity was high, and I would expect it to be that as they, like you said, have kind of a new slate and everyone’s starting from the same point.”

DeBoer on if Jalen Milroe is his guy or if is there a clean slate…

“You want competition, right? The competition is always gonna be there. Yeah, someone had to take the first reps today with the ones when we lined up and we referred to them as that. And Jalen did. So he’s putting everything into it he can, along with the other guys that took those first reps. But I fully expect those guys that are really hungry to be pushing those guys that are ahead of them to be their best. That’s what you want in a football program, and that certainly can be the case here with so many good football players here wanting to get on the football field.”

DeBoer on his first impressions of the player interactions with the coaching staff…

“I think they really take coaching well. We have specific jobs that we call or descriptions of what the coaches’ jobs and players’ jobs are. We’re very intentional – I’ve said that word a lot. We talk about the coaches’ jobs being to teach, critique and demand. We really talk about the critique part and the demanding part. When we’re pushing a guy and we’re asking more out of him and we’re coaching them up, that’s a good thing because that means we care and we see that potential in them and that’s our job. So I think the guys just really see that and can feel it today. From a player’s standpoint, it’s to continue to grind, to continue to refine what they do and compete each and every play.”

DeBoer on how smooth was it for players to learn how practice is now…

“We talked through the last week a few different times just on where these locations are for each session, and it was actually pretty smooth. The guys had a pretty good feel of where to go. What it allows you to do is then have the expectation of hustling and having a bounce in your step up, and the energy never fell off the entire length of practice. 

“I think when it comes to execution, as far as just how smooth things were, I think Practice 1 is pretty easy. It’s your base stuff on each side of the ball. I think where it will get hard is when you get into each continual install, Practice 2 but then especially Practice 3, 4 and 5 as we continue to put more in offensively or defensively and then the other side of the ball is putting something in as well. And that’s when it becomes something where not just what you have to do but also what you’re going against across from you.

“Today was great. I thought it was smooth from transitions to just how hard we competed and guys stayed up. Again, that helps with our health. And I thought the execution actually was pretty good. It’s gonna be a give and take. That’s what you want from the head coach’s standpoint. The offensive guys, of course, wanna dominate, and the defensive guys wanna dominate each and every play. But from my standpoint, I wanna see that good give and take, and that was certainly the case today.”

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