What Kalen DeBoer Said to Kick Off Wisconsin Week

Full transcript and press conference video from Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer recapping the USF game and looking forward to the first road test at Wisconsin.

Kalen DeBoer on sidelines in Bryant-Denny Stadium- Sept. 9, 2024 / Alabama Athletics

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.—  Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer met with the media Monday afternoon to discuss the Crimson Tide's performance against South Florida and look ahead to the team's first road test of the season at Wisconsin on Saturday.

Here's everything he had to say:

Full Transcript

Opening statement

"Got through the weekend, hope you guys had a good weekend (Coach, I spent most of my weekend the same way you did.) and I know you got a lot of information from the coordinators already but probably one of the things I know I’ll get asked is about injuries and so I’ll just hit on a couple guys that will come up. Cole Adams got hurt, upper extremity injury and we’ll kind of see how he goes through the week here. I’m not ruling him out, but I think he’ll probably be very limited early and we’ll see how it goes throughout the week there.

"Pritchett played in the game as you saw, I think the last six plays or so and came out good with that. He practiced towards the end of the week, Wednesday, Thursday — a little more limited on Wednesday. Felt ok about him being out there. Felt good about him being out there, and he came in and did a nice job, and the big thing is that he got through healthy and that was a key there.

"Then Kadyn Proctor, he will continue to work on his functional movement and all that kind of stuff, early in the week and keep progressing in a way where I feel we’ll be pretty dang close by the weekend of getting him on the football field. So, I feel like he’s coming along real, especially at the end of last week, working extremely hard to get back out there.

"I know a lot of the things both the coordinators talked about. A lot of the stuff that needs to be worked on was pretty obvious. I think sometimes you look at a game and the statistics don’t show the things that we know as a staff we need to work on are pretty obvious. Penalties, and takeaways, turnovers, creating takeaways and limiting turnovers is a high priority. It always is. It’s not something that we don’t take likely, it’s something that’s an emphasis every single day. So we’ll continue to do that and there were some highlights I thought that we could take from the game, both sides of the ball as a team. Continuing to fight. Continuing to play.  didn’t feel like our guys came up short with the amount of energy and effort. I think they had a ton of energy. They had want to before the game. At halftime I thought they regrouped. I thought both sides were holding themselves accountable for the things they knew they needed to clean up. We cleaned up some of those things in the second half.

"Other issues presented themselves and in the end though, they’re gonna find a way and they kept fighting, they kept playing together. They took it on themselves individually, their unit, to go make plays and trust the other side of the ball that they’d get it done as well. So I’m proud of that piece. Tomorrow we go back to work. Today’s their day off from practice and the guys came in yesterday excited and ready to go with the challenge that lies ahead with Wisconsin, and there really is no other option than to go to work tomorrow and we’re gonna have a great Tuesday."

On Que Robinson's performance against South Florida after his dad passed away earlier in the week...

“He’s played a couple really good games here in the two games we’ve played. I’m proud of him. I told him that after the game. I thought about him a couple times when I saw him out there flying around. There were a couple emotional times I think that he went through in the game, but he's just a special guy all around. Everyone sees him as a player, but being around him and seeing who he is as a person, he loves this program. He’s a guy who just everyone looks to as being consistent. For him to really get back here, have some urgency getting back here and feel like he wanted to be around this team the latter half of the week, it just show everything I said about his commitment to want to be here and help this program every single day be the best we can be. A lot of emotions for him, and I was proud of the way he played. He’s done a great job through two games.”

On the input he gives for in-game playcalling...

"Offense, Coach Sheridan calls the plays throughout a drive. Obviously I can override something if it is but I know as a play caller having done it for 20 years that you have to be in a rhythm. You have a plan in between series, I’ll ask what his thoughts are after he’s had a chance to get with the players. Now, especially with the iPads make get a couple of thoughts together with what they saw and as he’s up in the box putting the next thoughts and the drive together, I’ll be on the defense side and but then I’ll flip over.

"If there’s a takeaway early, sometimes I won’t get the chance to talk much. But usually with the TV timeouts and things like that I get a chance to kind of see where his head is at and give some input there. I think there’s always — I don’t want to say things you’re setting up — but I think there’s rhythm, I think that’s best way to describe it, that’s really critical. When you get too much input from too many people, you start getting out of that rhythm, and I think we’ve done a great job. That’s something I’ve made a point, every since I became the head coach again, to do because when I was with head coaches who did that I know how much I appreciated that, and I was was fortunate for 10 years as an assistant to have head coaches that let me go about my business the way I thought it needed to be done."

On Justin Jefferson's development...

"Yeah, I think that whole linebacking core has done a lot of great things. Justin, certainly, flying around. We feel great about the speed he brings. He’s into it. He’s into it, not just individually, he’s a guy that’s become a strong leader in our football team in the energy that he brings everyday. I just love having him in this program. He’s involved in special teams, not having him out there in the first half will be tougher. He’s an important part of what we do with different packages. Unfortunately, that happened late in the game. We’ll have to work through that with the first half of Wisconsin."

What he's seen from Jalen Milroe in first two games...

"Yeah, I think about some touchdown throws that he’s made. The one to K-Law in the first game, scramble on the run. The one to Prentice this week, stepping up in the pocket. Those are things that I’ve seen that he’s really improved. He had a scramble to Dippre where he hit him along the sideline. I thought there was another one that he did a really good job, some other guys could’ve worked with him a little bit better on a scramble drill. He went to the right and hit Germie on a scramble. So, I think eyes downfield and playing that game that he can play because people are worried about his legs where he can run and take off or he can draw the attention to them and throw it. I think that’s been great. When we give him looks where he can make decisions, because there’s a lot of times, two, three choices that he can make. Whether it’s throw a ball to a perimeter, running a running play, he may even keep it. I think he’s getting better with every rep that we do, whether it’s in practice or the games, you’re seeing that show up. We want those options because he can do it with his arms and his legs. The throw, the touchdown to Ryan Williams. That opportunity to just rip it out there. That’s something, I think when we started in spring ball, when we started I think we saw it in fall camp when he’s getting more comfortable. Not just confidence in yourself, confidence in the guys that are around you. I think that’s the key and he’s developing that.

"We’re talking through every little detail, not just with him, but we’re talking it through with the other positions so that trust can happen on the practice field. We’re intentional with that. This week he made more strides with checking protections with confidence. We can continue to work on that. He had to run around a little bit at times more than we’d like, but there’s a number of factors at play. It’s not just the offensive line, it’s the whole group. I think the areas you can continue to improve… Yeah, we just continue to work together with him to shape and mold. I think almost every year, I don’t care if it’s an offense you’ve been with and you’re in year two or year three or more. I think there’s an evolution where you have different personnel than the year before and right now we’re continuing to find exactly what works for us. What that rhythm is, what he’s exactly comfortable with. We aren’t going to run something that  - I think he does a good job of talking and giving us feedback of what he likes and what he maybe is a little bit - hey let’s try to hold off on that as we go through the week and I love that. I love that, because if there’s any question in any players minds, but especially the quarterback let’s hold off on that. That’s few and far between, but he’s done a good job of giving us feedback on what he saw and knowing that we can work together to help get him in the spots that he really wants to be in. We’re making progress. Great progress."

Message to Jalen Milroe in postgame… 

“I can't even remember exactly what I said. We talked in the locker room too. I don’t remember the exact words. It was probably just a lot of, ‘Hey, we’re always learning.’ I think that was the general theme of what I was sharing with him. We’re always learning. It’s good to grind out a win in the fourth quarter. Just something along those lines that I think it had to do with, ‘You keep fighting for this reason. You’re gonna find a way to break through at some point if you just keep playing the game and let the game come back to you by competing.”

What he saw on Justin Jefferson targeting play and his thoughts on targeting rule…

“The helmets hit each other, so we’ll wait to get exactly the feedback. There’s not much you can do when you’re out there as a coach in that moment. Anything I say isn’t gonna matter when they’re going through their decision. Their helmets hit, now it’s just a matter whether it met any or all of the ways that they determine whether it’s targeting or not. Face mask versus crown, all those type of things. I know they [Wisconsin] have got a player that’s out too. I think that was more of a midlevel hit in that game.”

What he says to a position group struggling with penalties… 

“For us in that game last weekend, we needed to adjust to how it’s being called. I think that’s when you say, ‘Hey, it’s getting called. It’s getting called tighter.’ Now, we’re really able to look at replays and understand that if you didn’t see it in the game when it happened live or why it was called, because sometimes it’s on the other side of the field from where our bench is at. You can go back and see the end zone and wide shot and try to determine how tight is it called. Trying to stress that… and our hands were inside in a lot of cases, we just kept grabbing cloth longer when they were pulling away from us. Just for that split second and holding getting called. Unfortunately it brought back— I don’t know this is a rough tally, but I just wanted to do my own numbers— I think it was probably at least 180, 190 yards worth of offense, not counting the yards that we lost because of the penalty assessment. That’s a game changer. In the first half alone, I think it was probably 180. We’ve got to adjust and make sure we’re playing the game the way it’s supposed to be played.”

On the secondary through two games… 

“They’ve done a really good job of changing it up, different coverages and different game plans from Week 1 to Week 2. We got the two picks to start out the season. I think they were 15 of 35 in the game. That wasn’t their strength necessarily. But we took it away from them and really no explosives from a passing side of the ball for them. I really liked it. Different guys are coming up and making tackles. Malachi did a great, nice job having to come up. Unfortunately, sometimes the quarterback did break contain and make some little plays with his legs. But guys were there to go get him on the ground and live to see another play. That’s your last line of defense, and I think we’ve done a good job of only giving up one touchdown so far. So aside from pass coverage, they’re keeping the opponent out of the end zone. In the red zone especially, forcing field goals. 

“I like where we’re at. Got a lot of youth that we’re rotating through there. That’s not just promising for the growth that they’re going to have this year, but promising for the future down the road.”

Getting ready for playing in first road environment…

“There’s nothing like playing at home here at Bryant-Denny, but I think there is something to knowing you’re going into a great environment. These guys really probably haven’t been there— maybe a couple guys from the Midwest that have seen that or been on a visit maybe at one point. It’s going to be a great atmosphere up there. And I think it’s one that when you’re preparing to go play those games, and we’ll of course have that many times here with the SEC schedule too, that hostile environment, taking it on and just kind of knowing that it’s you versus everyone there. I think our guys are looking forward to the challenge and looking forward to improving on this last week and knowing that we’re going to have to in order to get a win against Wisconsin on Saturday.”

On Tim Keenan… 

“Yeah I caught Tim yesterday. I think we’re all on the same page in feeling that he’s done a really nice job here in the first two games as well. Just pushing the pocket, disciplined in his assignment. He’s just steady as a person, but he’s also just steady as a player being a force inside. His strength is important. He’s making sure he’s always doing his job, and you can count on him. So really, really a key piece to the success that I think we’ve had defensively.”

See also: How to Watch: No. 4 Alabama at Wisconsin; Week 3 College Football TV Schedule