Everything Western Kentucky Head Coach Tyson Helton Said After Losing to Alabama

A full transcript of everything Hilltoppers head coach Tyson Helton said after falling to Alabama 63-0 in the season opener.

Western Kentucky head coach Tyson Helton postgame press conference / Photo taken at press conference

The Alabama Crimson Tide dominated Western Kentucky 63-0 in Saturday evening's season opener.

While Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer is 1-0 on the season, Hilltoppers head coach Tyson Helton is on the other end, as his team failed to score despite beating Alabama in the time of possession stat category by a large margin.

Helton spoke to reporters after the game. Here's a full transcript of everything he said in the postgame press conference:

Opening Statement:

Really good football team we played tonight in the University of Alabama. I tell you, they did everything you're supposed to do. They were a big, physical football team. They played well, they were very cohesive with what they did. They got after us pretty good, so hats off to them, they're 1-0. They got a great staff, a great team, and I expect great things from them this year. They really challenge a lot of people. As far as our football team, you know, at times I thought we did some good things. I thought we moved the ball well in the first half. Obviously, the turnovers cost, just for the interceptions. Defensively, we've had way too many explosive plays, as we all know, in the first half. Defense settled down a little bit in the second half, started to find their group a little bit offensively, we just couldn't, couldn't get it going. Good football team we played, and looking forward to watching those guys play the rest of the year.

On the two early interceptions:

First one, TJ had. I gotta look at the film. I haven't seen it. Kind of forced it into coverage there. The second one down there in the red zone, I don't necessarily think it was TJ's fault. We're throwing an end cut and we didn't come out of it fast, so we kind of threw it off a little bit, where the safety could jump in front of it. I thought it was a misfortune. We settled down, moved the ball, had some conversions, got red zone, but Alabama did their thing with excellent defense. Hats off to the defense, they were fantastic tonight.

On why he switched quarterbacks:

I actually thought TJ, under the circumstances in the first half, I thought TJ did well. I really did. You know, two interceptions were unfortunate, but I thought he made some really good plays under a lot of pressure, under a lot of duress. I thought our receivers stepped up in the first half and made plays. I just wanted you know, like I talked about, both those quarterbacks earned the right to play. I felt like coming in, we were way behind and wanted to change things up. TJ totally understands it. He gets it. We wanted to give Caden [Veltkamp] an opportunity to go out there and see what he can do.

On running back Elijah Young:

He had a couple nice runs. You know, he's kind of our solid rock that we trust out there. In a day where there wasn't a ton of positives to, you know, I thought he did all he could do, as did a lot of other guys. A lot of other guys played really hard. Felt like our team competed as hard as they could compete. You know, we just got outmanned tonight, got outplayed. There's a lot of guys like Elijah really just kept grinding and kept running. We'll learn a lot from the tape and will get ready to play our next home game. We'll be excited to get back home and play our first home game.

On if he wants to forget about this game:

No, I think you look at the film and you really evaluate it hard. Your first game, you really got to take a good look at it. You got to evaluate personnel. We played a lot of guys in this game. Got to see if there needs to be some changeups there. Because I feel like, you know, going into the game, there was a lot of pieces to the puzzle we were trying to figure out. So we got to evaluate the film hard. We got to get better from it, we got to figure out, okay, what do we do really well, and how do we build on that? What are the things we need to cut try to help our guys. You know, 11 guys you put out there to play give the best chance for success. I think we'll have a good football team. I think our guys get it. I think they get the big picture tonight. We just got outmanned and just a really good football team. I told them in the locker room, I said, 'Hey, you flip the switch and clear it. Got a lot of hard work ahead of us.' But I'm excited to get ready to go and play our first home game vs. EKU. It's going to be a dogfight. It's going to be a game that we got to really play well to go win. We're looking forward to getting on the plane.

On how TJ Finley's past experience playing against Alabama helped the team prepare this past week during practice:

Well, I thought looking at TJ's eyes really the whole game, I felt like he was pretty calm. He had the veteran look about him, even the mistakes he had with interceptions, he got it. I wasn't concerned there. You know, it was nice to have a veteran guy out there that's had experience with Alabama. You know, the defensive side of things, we just kind of get better and not give up explosive plays. There were way too many explosive plays in the first half.