How Alabama players responded in first practice after Vanderbilt loss

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer’s message to the team is simple.

“Decide,” said Crimson Tide defensive lineman Tim Smith.

“Decide how you’re going to attack the day. Decide how you’re going to get better, be better and focus rep after rep so that we can get the best out of you.”

Alabama (4-1, 1-1 SEC) is coming off its first loss of the season and one of its worst losses in recent memory. The Tide fell to unranked Vanderbilt, 40-35, last weekend in Nashville, which snapped a 23-game winning streak over the Commodores. The loss came one week after UA defeated then-No. 2 Georgia for one of the best wins of the 2024 campaign.

Alabama could not avoid a letdown in the Music City, and it will look to get back on track this weekend when it hosts another unranked SEC opponent, the South Carolina Gamecocks.

How have the Tide players “decided” to respond this week in practice? Very well, they said.

“I think it was a really positive response,” said Alabama tight end Robbie Ouzts. “Great weather today. We came out there flying around, had a good, physical practice. A lot of guys getting assignments right. We got some good stuff going in this week. 

“So I think it was a really good practice.”

After the win over Georgia, DeBoer said Alabama needed to have its best Tuesday practice of the season. While there was no indication that the first practice of Vanderbilt game week went poorly, the vets liked what they saw on the Thomas-Drew Practice Fields this morning.

“It was a great practice,” said Alabama offensive lineman Tyler Booker. “I feel like that was our best Tuesday of the year, and I attribute that to us just getting used to the schedule now, us being a morning team. It’s a big transition for a lot of guys who were here last year, practicing in the afternoon and then us also having Mondays off, so you’ve gotta go full speed on Tuesday. 

“But us getting used to this schedule, getting into this routine, this was by far our best Tuesday of the year.”

Again, it’s not that Alabama’s practices last week were bad. It came down to execution. It’s why there wasn’t much panic from the Tide players in making drastic practice habits.

“I feel like if you make one situation bigger than the other, make something else bigger than the other, you’re short-changing yourself,” Booker said. “If we end up working harder this week than last week, why didn’t we work that hard last week? 

“So I’m not gonna sit up here and tell you that we didn’t work hard last week, that we didn’t have a great week of preparation because I feel like we did. They just ended up making more plays than we did, and there’s a lot of things that we need to learn from as a team, that we are learning from to avoid that from happening again.”

The Tide has watched the film from the road loss, which saw Alabama out-gained by 418-396. Vanderbilt converted 12-of-18 third downs on its way to dominating time of possession, 42:08 to 17:52. Both Booker and Smith expressed their desire to “finish” the next time out.

“We came in with the mindset today to go ahead and be intent and be pure in everything that we were gonna do,” Smith said. “So we got majority of everything corrected today.”

The disappointment is apparent less than 72 hours after the loss, but it can also provide a team with motivation. On the first day back on the field, that was the case for Alabama.

“Losses usually bring a team closer together, and I think that’s what’s happening right now,” said Alabama safety Malachi Moore. “Everybody’s kind of gelling together even more than we already were. Now it’s definitely us against the world. 

“Everybody’s self-reflecting and looking in the mirror. There’s not a lot of pointing fingers going on. Everybody’s kind of checking themselves, ‘what could I have done better,’ from coaches to players. 

“I think that’s important that everybody’s taking accountability and not trying to say it was his fault or his fault. We’re all in this together, win or lose.”

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