Kalen DeBoer talks Alabama loss to Michigan Football in ReliaQuest Bowl

Trent Knoop | Dec 31, 2024

Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images

Alabama went into the ReliaQuest Bowl as 16.5-point favorites over Michigan on Tuesday. But three early turnovers proved to be too big for the Crimson Tide as the Wolverines scored 16 first-quarter points. The Michigan offense mostly stalled after that, but the Wolverine defense continued to hold Bama time after time.

Following Michigan's 19-13 win over Alabama, first-year head coach Kalen DeBoer spoke with the media. Here is everything he had to say about his team losing to the Wolverines.

Opening statement

I loved the fight in our team in the first
half to gain some momentum, just got to finish some drives
there at the end of the fourth quarter. That's what it comes
down to. Make a throw, make a catch.

Guys played their hearts out, though. Never going to
question the competitiveness of some guys out there
playing through a lot when it comes to even just the
physical pain that they're trying to grind through, trying to
finish this thing right. Feel for those guys. Want the guys
that obviously are going to be coming back to remember
this feeling, remember some of the feelings throughout the
year, but we've got to keep building for the team to move
forward.

On going for a fourth down in the fourth quarter instead of kicking a FG

Yeah, you think about it. Felt like at the
time and obviously now we know that he can kick the one
at the end from that distance. Just felt like we were on the
fringe of really what the percentages were, understanding
who we are, and again, it sounds like you don't have
confidence in your kicker, which I do, but just felt like we
can convert a 4th and 7. What was it, 4th and 7? Yeah,
4th and 7.

Unfortunately we didn't. Felt like the passing game when
we were executing, which that's a big part of it, that we can
find a way to convert and get the ball into the right guy's
hands and let him go make a play.

Sticking with Jalen Milroe despite three early turnovers

Well, I think there were some elements
at play. I know even the pick, I mean, that's a really nice
play. You throw it maybe two inches out further, and it's a
catch for us, and I'm not sure if we'd run out of bounds or
what there. But they made a nice play.

You guys were there, you saw the elements on the snap.
They've got a guy field it, you can't turn it over. They
struggled, I think, and unfortunately they had the field
position -- fortunately for them they had the field position
where they didn't really have to press until the rain kind of
moved through.

But that certainly didn't help us and kind of dug ourselves a
rut, had to play a little different style again.
But hats off to our guys there at the end of the first half of
understanding, hey, just get one score, and then one score
led to two. Wish we could have just done something there
I think the end of the third quarter, beginning of the fourth
quarter, where we get maybe a field goal, put some points
on the board, put the ball in the end zone.

To clarify, did DeBoer think of benching Milroe

No, I didn't. I just felt like there's things
that he still did. We scored a field goal with him using his
legs. We went 95 plus yards in less than a minute. Just
that factor and what we needed with him and his mobility
added to the run game, I felt like that was the swap right
there.

The interception early, you want a lot of those
incompletions happened and down and distances that
weren't favorable or backs to the wall and have to throw
the ball at the end of the first half, at the end of the second
here, so I know that gets away from you from the
completion percentage.

But I thought there was still a lot of good plays that he
made, too, and I saw, I guess, a fighter, the fight in his
eyes, and as long as I see that, I want to hang in there with
the guys that this program means a lot to.

On not running much against Michigan

Yeah, I think that they're one of the top
five rushing defenses, and I know that there's personnel on
both sides, both teams that were different maybe from
what you would see in the regular season, both us and
them.

But I think there was certainly part of our game plan to
where we felt we needed to spit the ball out and get the
ball in the right guys' hands and try to do that, and whether
it was slipping or incomplete passes, some of those plays
didn't get executed the way that you practice them for the
last two, three weeks.

Yeah, there were some runs that I think JAM at the end of
the game poured up in there at the end of the first half. I
really thought he did a nice job getting us out from behind
our own end zone there. He ran hard, and I think just
having a little bit of a balance was important for us in this
game because of who they were and a little bit of what we
felt we could do to attack them.

Was this a successful season?

Every time you're in the locker room
and you have something like this, it's disappointing. But I
think there's a lot of things that you take from it. I know
that the guys that hung in there, that probably played their
last game in the crimson and white, they wouldn't have had
it any other way as far as to show the grit, show the
determination, show the competitiveness. They stayed the
course.

There's a whole lot more, I just think, that really goes into
the last 12 months. People see what happens on a
Saturday, but it's guys choosing to stay here, guys
choosing to go from one week to the next when you're on a
little bit of a roller coaster through the middle of the season,
and as long as we learn from it, then to me, then it can be
a success moving forward.

We're going to take all these things that happened, and
there's some things that happened in the game today, too,
that we've got to learn from and make sure that those
mistakes don't hurt us a year from now. I don't care if it's
turnovers, penalties. It's everything. So to me, it's a
success if we move forward and we take advantage of the
lessons, even though we don't want to learn those lessons
sometimes because they're hard. We're going to learn
from those lessons, move forward, and be better next year
because of it.

I told the guys that played their last game how much I
appreciate them. I know their teammates shared how
much they appreciate them, as well, in the locker room,
and we're going to -- I know they're going to make us proud
when they move on to the next level, and I promised them
we're going to continue to make them proud with the fight
and the standard of competitiveness that they instilled in
this program here moving forward.

On not being able to sustain momentum after halftime

Yeah, you know, the losses were the
ones that hurt us. A sack, being behind the chains. That's
what they thrive on. Their defense does a good job of
thriving on being physical, forcing you into down and
distances where you're behind the chains, and when that
happened, it's tough to overcome against a team that
understands their identity, plays team football.

We knew
the game would get shrunk down when you kind of knock
out the first quarter, which you can't do, because that's part
of the game, and all of a sudden it takes on a different
game of its own because you're down 16-0. You're just
fighting, scrapping and trying to give yourself a chance like
we did at the very end.

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