Everything Kalen DeBoer said to kick off Vanderbilt game week

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer kicked off Vanderbilt game week with a press conference on Monday. The Crimson Tide will face the Commodore on the road in its second conference game on Saturday, Oct. 5, at 3:15 p.m. CT on the SEC Network.

Below is everything DeBoer said during his Monday press conference of game week No. 5.

DeBoer’s opening statement…

“Following up on a few things, I know we talked postgame and covered a lot of the big picture stuff and coordinators covering a few things for you. Just continuing to be proud of the team. I thought the preparation that we put into the week’s, you know, we had a bye week there, I thought the guys did an excellent job. But I think the preparation goes back before that too. Just the continual improvement that and it’s something that’s inside of these guys. They want to be great. Just proud of the way they bring it every day, the energy. It shows every day I step on the football field. Proud of that.

“We’ve been doing a lot of things well. I think we’re continuing to do more things well on both offense, defense and also special teams. Always going to be things that we need to continue to clean up. We know we’re only as good as our last game. Everything that’s on film or anything that didn’t go like you hoped is going to be what the next opponents going to look at and try to attack you with. Looking forward to tomorrow morning and a great practice, should be full of energy. It needs to be the best Tuesday we’ve ever had just because that’s the way we have to approach each and every opportunity.”

DeBoer on how to help Ryan Williams manage attention… 

“He’s obviously got a lot coming his way and a lot of things that we expect him to continue to do, make a lot of plays and he’s going to continue to bring on that attention. Just educating him and understanding, both on the field while he’s doing his thing and away from it just the impact he has is seen. The influence he has is great and just how to manage all of that so it’s just a process. It’s not just with him, it’s with every one of our guys. We try to do a really good job with that and there’s a lot going on and every little thing is picked up on, especially these days. Ryan’s a first-class guy all the way, through and through. I love coaching him. He brings a great work ethic, smile, all the things you want each and every day in practice.”

DeBoer on the importance of gaining yards after the muffed kickoff…

“That’s a really good point. The first point is we’ve got to do a better job of making sure that situation doesn’t happen. We talked a lot about that yesterday in our special teams meetings and we’ll learn from that. Getting those first downs and getting yourself some space, especially when you do have James, where he can flip the field, you want to obviously move the ball further, get more first downs, but that was a big catch, converting there with Germ on the catch there. It’s critical because no one likes to be punting in their endzone, that space gets pretty tight. They did a nice job converting, but always felt like getting a couple first downs is the minimum. We didn’t get two of them, but getting our backs off the goal line was certainly important there.”

DeBoer on his fiery moment with the officials…

“I don’t think you predetermine when or what you’re gonna do and all that. But the guys are fighting, and when you see something a certain way – I just felt like that was big time in the game. We were doing a lot of things well, and some opportunities that just we didn’t take advantage of as a team. And that moment right there, we talk about the middle eight and going to the locker room with a lot of momentum – and I know we got a safety there right in that area, too – but just there were some missed opportunities that we would have loved to have had.

“And I was just fighting for my team. And I know they were out there fighting and doing everything they could. And so I just loved the way we were playing up until that point, I wanted to keep it going and I just saw it a certain and wanted to make it known.”

DeBoer on the tight ends, CJ Dippre…

“The tight end has always been an extremely critical part of our offense. The ability to be able to line up wide, come in tight, hand down, off the ball – the more things all can do, especially skill players, in our offense, the more versatile we’ll become. Receivers who can run the ball, we saw that with some guys Saturday night. Running backs that can catch the ball; we saw that for a touchdown, and some other opportunities, as well. Just that versatility to where a defense and a defensive coordinator putting in a game plan has to give him all these different elements of how we’re gonna attack.

“With CJ in particular, he’s continued to find his way into this offense and guys finding him, whether it’s Jalen or us just understanding the best ways to utilize him the way he’s most comfortable. He did a nice job, and he has done a nice job, taking advantage of his opportunities, and there was just more of them. And that was part of the plan – things that fit a lot of different ways where we felt like we could attack, and he did a nice job all game long. As well as did the other tight ends.”

DeBoer on the importance of the safety after an interception…

“It’s huge. And really, the defenses love to be in that spot. I didn’t like how we got into that spot because we had to kick it down to them there – or that was actually off the interception. That’s even worse, right? But taking advantage and when a team has their backs to the wall – just like we just spoke of with our back to the wall – that’s a tough spot to be in. And I thought Coach Wommack and the defense dialed some good things up and put them in a really uncomfortable spot where they had to really react quickly and we got the intentional grounding. So those two points – all points, as we saw at the end of the game – were really critical.

“And I think when it comes to points in general – and this is a little off the topic – that’s one thing I loved about our team. The two-point conversions at the end, whether it’s us scoring or us stopping them, understanding the significance of every point. And that goes for extra points in the middle of the game or first quarter. I think our guys play hard each and every play, but especially with those points are at stake.”

DeBoer on Jalen Milroe’s intermediate throws, TD pass to Jam Miller…

“The thing that stuck out to me in that moment, is that he didn’t even think twice. That is just something, I think is coming along more and more. I think when it comes to Jalen’s game, there’s the piece, the fundamental piece, right, that you’re always working on, and there’s also the element of understanding the offense and what we’re trying to accomplish with concepts. And then there’s a trust that has to be there with the other guys that are there in front of you, to block the guys that are running the routes, just all of it coming together. And I think you just see it each and every week, those steps in all those areas happening and the progress he’s making. And that doesn’t just happen. You have to intentionally work at all of it and its communication. ‘Hey, I’m gonna, I might throw that in there if you have a step on it.’ It’s just reaffirming with each and every one of them in practice. And that’s a lot of work. And he brings that energy, he brings that intentionality each and every day.”

DeBoer on learning from the second half vs. Georgia…

“It’s important for us to now have this. Each game provides experiences, right? Every game, every opportunity, and we all have our experiences outside of being here in Alabama, all the areas, places we came from, and we talked about this as a team, for us to start fast, like we have, really the last two games. We did against Western Kentucky. That South Florida game, I think we learned a lot, but I really like that because that shows the preparation, that confidence. As a result of it, we hit the ground running. Yes, we would like to have a better second half. There’s literally one play here, one play there, a small little piece that would have in the early part of the third quarter, mid-part of the third quarter, completely changed that game. And unfortunately it did. It did happen, and we have to continue to learn from that.

“You know, continue to just understand that those moments become big, and so that experience what we went through, whether it was the missed opportunities or how resilient we were at the end, and learning that it was a team win, because the offense scored and the defense stopped, and it took both sides of the ball, doing everything they could to help us win that football game. There’s a good positive vibe, because it wasn’t just one side of the other that carried the weight or found a way to win. It was a team win, and we’ll learn from that and continue to trust and believe in each other and continue to grow as a team because of it.”

DeBoer on Kane Wommack’s “Swarm” defense…

“There’s a reason why I wanted Kane to be here. I saw it back in 2019 when I was at Indiana with him, and really liked a lot about what he was doing, whether it was schematically or how he brought a unit together, just the support he gives me and the type of person he is and I can go on and on. But when it comes to your question about what he can do, I think it’s a little bit different. Every defense has got their own style. A lot of people are going to say that, but there’s a mix of attacking style with the opportunity, or the way of just making people earn it, and he can just kind of pull on that and make it kind of look the same from play to play, and he’s got a great, great, great mindset, great, great schematic system that he can really draw upon to be able to pull the trigger on whatever he wants. Then being able to communicate it through his staff and make it simple for our guys to allow them to play fast.

“I think what you’re also seeing, especially early in the season here as a new team, there’s still stuff that’s happening that we haven’t been through, experiences and situations and each and every game. That’s one thing you just worry about going into a game like this. It’s an early game of the season against a very quality opponent, and all those situations that you try to get your team to understand and prepare for during spring, summer, fall, they’re never the same as when it happens out there at the moment. Kane has done a great job preparing the defense, allowing them to play fast and do the things they’re doing. Four takeaways against a team that hadn’t had any turnovers, that’s a big deal.”

DeBoer on the atmosphere of Saturday’s game…

“I appreciate that. I was going to talk about that, because that was a huge deal. And, you know, the guys are in a hotel and they’re going through walkthroughs and and all of that, whether it’s Friday night, Saturday, and you don’t really have a sense of what’s going on there. I got a chance to go out there on GameDay, that set, and get a good feel of it, and maybe just give them a heads up that, ‘Hey, it’s going to be a fun day. It’s going to be a lot of energy.’ And when we start pulling into the stadium, you can feel it.  I’m on that first bus with the guys. Their eyes were wide open and excited about what they were feeling and seeing. And then, of course, just throughout the game, I just can’t tell you enough. I think there’s just an energy.

“It’s not like you pick out any single thing, like I still haven’t — I hate to say this, I’m embarrassed to say this, Dixieland Delight, I still haven’t really experienced it. I don’t know when — I thought it was supposed to happen between the third quarter and the fourth quarter, but it must happen another time. So the lights go out, and I’m thinking it’s going to happen, and it doesn’t happen. So I’m still learning myself. But the energy, the excitement of it, there’s just something special about playing in Bryant-Denny. I can’t tell the fan base how much the guys love it and we appreciate it and can’t wait to continue to do it again.”

DeBoer on where the Georgia game ranks in his career…

“There’s a lot of great ones. I think, I go back to — I think this has been brought up and maybe coach Wommack talked about it, but the experiences you’ve been through. I’ve been through enough to where I just think so optimistically, like, we can do this, we can do this. And trying to get that to your team is the tricky part, because they haven’t been through all those experiences, they don’t have enough games under their belt to be able to have something that’s happened in almost every spot in the field. Offensively, defensively, we can get that interception, just believing that’s going to happen, or we can convert this fourth down, we can get this touchdown.

“And it’s definitely up there, because there was certainly the ebbs and flows to an extreme when it comes to the lead, the loss of the lead, and then even in the last two and a half minutes, just how the game went back and forth. So it is a big one. I think the significance of it being our first conference game against a top-ranked opponent, taking all of those things in, it’s as big as any. I mean, I have a lot of pride in just winning some national championships and things like that. So that’s internal. But this is where my feet are at right now. And so this is the most important one I’ve ever won and it ranks at the top.”

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