Tight end on how Tide gets back to its standard: 'Don't get bored with the basics'

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Alabama isn’t making any excuses, coach Kalen DeBoer said.

“That’s the one thing that only softens character,” DeBoer said on Monday. “It only lowers the standard, and that will never happen.”

Crimson Tide tight end CJ Dippre, who is in his second year in the program, agreed.

“I grew up somewhere where I don’t really use excuses – your buts, your whys,” Dippre said after Tuesday’s practice. “That stuff just holds you back. So there’s no excuses. You have to understand when something goes wrong with you personally or anybody else, what can I do better? 

“… No matter what happens, a good play or a bad play, if you have a good play, what now? In Tennessee, I jumped over a guy; the next play, I didn’t do my best job. What now? What are you gonna do now? So you just have to keep getting back up.”

Alabama has lost two of its last three games and has two losses before the calendar turns to November for the first time since 2007 – Nick Saban’s first season as the Tide’s coach.

Though newer to Alabama, the team hasn’t played to the program’s standard in recent weeks, Dippre said. As a veteran player on the 2024 squad, the tight end believes returning to that form is achievable but starts with small details in the building and out at practice.

“Just really take pride in the small things,” Dippre said. “Don’t get bored with the basics and coming to practice every day, working your butt off every day and just doing the small things right. We have TNT signs – ‘Takes no talent.’ If you make a mistake on a play, you get a flag, it takes no talent. Run to the sign, touch the sign. We’ve gotta get back into that and just accepting ownership and stuff. 

“We’ve gotta own up to it, accept it, flush it and go 1-0 the next play.”

Dippre later went into more detail on the little things that Alabama needs to do this week.

“Get back to what we’re supposed to wear – shirts tucked in, five minutes, 10 minutes early to meetings. Not all this late stuff,” Dippre said. “Not doing what you want to do.

“Just little things like that carry over to the football field. Because then, if you take one wrong step, one wrong thing, it just all carries over. So you gotta act everything, all throughout the day. Going to class on time. Everything is like you would want to do on the football field.”

Dippre admits that Alabama “probably shouldn’t have” lost games at Vanderbilt and Tennessee and a lot of the things that went wrong were because the Tide “beat ourselves.”

“Bama doesn’t really lose two games, especially not before November,” Dippre said. “So just rallying around, knowing what we have to do, get back to it. 

“We just talked as a unity council, as a leadership council. Young guys aren’t young guys anymore. Everyone’s gotta step up in their shoes. Everybody’s gotta know what they’re doing. That’s for leaders also. Everybody’s just gotta do their role to the best of their ability.”

This Dippre’s final year. It’s his last chance to win a national championship. UA is not out of the playoff picture after its second loss, but its margin for error is slim. Another loss would end its postseason hopes, and Alabama is working this week to avoid that.

“The goal here when you come to Alabama, you sign up to be the best,” Dippre said. “You wanna be the best because that’s the Bama standard. We obviously all wanna win a national championship. Two losses, it’s tough. Nobody can promise us what our future holds. But just get back into it – the team, the team – and get back into everyone doing their job and playing their role.”

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