What Kalen DeBoer said about Alabama being left out of College Football Playoff
Alabama was left out of the College Football Playoff on Sunday, and Crimson Tide head coach Kalen DeBoer shared his reaction when speaking to reporters via Zoom on Sunday night.
“Certainly disappointed that we weren’t one of the 12 selected,” DeBoer said. “Certainly feel we’re one of those. There’s things that obviously we got to do and could have done this year, but got to make sure it’s not in other people’s hands and keep ourselves focused on that next year.
“Just knowing that the process doesn’t always end up how you think it is, how you think it’s gonna.”
DeBoer was fresh from attending Alabama’s annual awards banquet, which was held inside the Hank Crisp Indoor Practice Facility. He shared how the Crimson Tide’s players have all handled being the first team left out of the first-ever, 12-team College Football Playoff.
“Haven’t had a lot of like one-on-one talks and things like that, but certainly, they share the same disappointment but also looking forward to what lies ahead with our bowl opportunity,” DeBoer said.
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“Obviously, hoping it was going to be more than one game, but we got one more game together and going to make the most of it, whether it’s this season, the 2024 team or just building on it and preparing for the future and being better because of the opportunities we get here in the next couple of weeks.”
Alabama (9-3, 5-3 SEC) had participated in nine of the previous 11 playoffs, but the selection committee chose to include SMU over the Crimson Tide on Sunday morning. A data point UA was hoping would be enough to sway the committee was strength of schedule. Alabama has the No. 16 schedule compared to No. 60 for the Mustangs, per ESPN’s Football Power Index.
Tide director of athletics Greg Byrne suggested a potential shift in scheduling philosophy due to the CFP outcome, and DeBoer left that discussion to his AD. But he seemed in favor of keeping the non-conference games that Alabama has on its schedule for the next decade.
“I want to play competitive games,” DeBoer said. “We want to play in the best games. I understand how it didn’t feel like that. It definitely wasn’t rewarded, it felt like, with our schedule and the wins we had against teams that were ranked, or now ranked or even ranked at the time, because there’s, I think even like an LSU at the time was ranked, and it isn’t anymore.
“… I know we got some what you would consider higher-profile games against programs that traditionally have been very successful. We want to be a part of that. We want that to happen. That’s the exciting thing about college football is being in as many big games as possible. We don’t want to back down to that. We want to be a part of it. And that hopefully will be rewarded down the road.”
Alabama will now face Michigan in ReliaQuest Bowl on Tuesday, December 31, in Tampa.
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