LEXINGTON, Ky.–– Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer seemed to be in a really good mood after the his team's 45-17 win over Kentucky to start SEC play with the win.

DeBoer spent time with the media following the game. Here's everything he said in his postgame press conference:

Full Transcript

Opening statement

“Far from perfect game, but one of those games that just, I’m really proud of the guys. Just told them that. And again, it’s not indicative of the things we’ve got to clean up. We faced a lot of resiliency in different ways, a lot of things. Even just stuff you don’t expect to come up, losing comms even in the third quarter from coordinator to quarterback. I thought everything you had to face was thrown at us. Just really proud of the way the guys fought. I thought at halftime, it wasn’t this crazy energy we had to have. I felt like it was almost just this getting locked in, getting re-focused, and just knowing the game was gonna be ours— we just had to go out and execute. 

“The turnover battle, that was obviously a big part of the swing. First half, giving those guys, giving Kentucky a chance with the interception for a touchdown. Obviously, we got one back. We know that that’s a huge part of what winning football’s all about. 

“Daniel Hill getting 100 yards. That’s exciting. Just saw that. I want to mention Jireh Edwards, 19 days out of a broken arm post-op, going out there and getting a sack. We got a lot of tough dudes. That’s toughness physically, that’s toughness mentally. I think there’s some emotional maturity. You know, we had some penalties, but I don’t think it was anything as far as foolish late hits and things like that. 

“We’re gonna get better as we keep playing. You know, even just getting young guys out there snaps, offensively probably in particular, getting guys those reps, getting familiar with everything. That’s just gonna be part of where we’re at right now in the early part of the season. Doing what we did and winning the second half builds belief, builds trust. You’ve got to go through those experiences, really, to shape and build your team.”

On the rushing performance in the second half...

"I felt like the ability to run the ball was there. A couple outside runs that we took some negative plays on, and then Keelon had the sacks. We had the penalties, so we were behind the chains a lot, which really kept us from being able to find the groove. Sometimes Keelon in our RPO game just needs to hand it off and let these guys wear them out. Those are all learning experiences that we're going to be able to watch the film on. He can, from a management of the game in those areas, he's gonna learn. We can do some things for him, too. We're taking needless pressures on sprint outs, and we've just got to block the edge to give them the edge, and we can't do that, and it's not that hard. There's some things, again, it's younger guys that are gonna learn from their mistakes because the want-to is there, and we've got the athletes to do it. We've got some smart guys that'll get it done."

On Keelon Russell's response to early mistakes...

"He stays cool, calm. He believes in himself. That’s evident. Sometimes he’ll go and try and make a play, and we’ve just to try to help him understand the situation and how to keep us on the field. I don’t want to take his aggressiveness away from him because there’s some plays he made out there too. It’s a fine line. He’s gonna go help us win games. He did that, I thought. Played winning football in the second half. First half, you’ve just gotta make sure you find a passing lane on screens so that the ball can’t get tipped and some of those things at the end of the first half. Don’t give up the needless points. With the interception, don’t force things. He’s a fighter. He believes in himself. He’s won a lot of football games at a high level, and I know it was high school, but he understands what that pressures all about. It was great to see him come out in the second half and play the game he did.”

On teaching Keelon to throw the ball away when nothing's open...

"We've got to do a better job sometimes of, it's not always the offensive line either, of giving him something clean. I kind of mentioned earlier, but some of our RPO stuff, it's OK to just hand it off. He's an aggressive kid, and we love the things he can bring to the table on that, but when there's guys in your face coming to you from the back side, you've got to throw through them, and it gets knocked, just hand it off. And I think there's some running lanes we might be able to see–– I'll have to watch the film.

"Last week, it was when you're running, making sure you slide. I think there's some things like you're mentioning of just making sure you throw it away. Live to see another down. Stay upright, all those things we talk about. I did feel like he made a lot of improvements from last week to this week, especially before the ball's even snapped. There's those areas that now we can continue to work on the execution that we can work on when the ball is snapped and just knowing how to manage each down-and-distance, each situation that comes his way."

On the defensive adjustments in the second half to keep Kentucky off the board...

"We gave them the seven points, right, at the beginning. We really gave them another three on the field goal at the end of the half. They hit the one scramble, I guess, so I felt like we really were doing a good job of keeping them under wraps defensively for most of the game. And then when we started getting the lead, I think the momentum, and now we started playing from the lead, they can't play their game. They're forced to throw it a little bit more, and then our pass rush gets home. Credit our special teams too for getting the stop on their fake punt and being alert and guys making plays there.

"I thought our defense, you know, there's always gonna be calls, and you save some for the second half, and I think our defense did a good job of continuing to evolve throughout the game. I think we had a pretty good plan and pretty good handle on things from the get-go. We put seven points up on the board ourselves, as well."

On how the players handled the noise and atmosphere...

"We know that wherever we go, we're going to get everyone's best. That's just Alabama on the road. That's the environment. It's going to be amped up. Add on top what Kentucky's trying to do here with everything new to them and a win last week, trying to keep the momentum. I really feel like most of our guys, there are a lot of new faces that have to learn and feel it before you really can say that, 'Oh we can handle it,' but we have a lot of guys that have been through it last year, maybe two years now going on Year 3 to where when these games are amped up and there's noise and there's talk, it's not something to where we we're losing our confidence, it's something to where it energizes us. We appreciate that.

"I felt like we had a lot of juice coming out of the locker room to start the game. Again, there's things we can't do with the mistakes we made. But all week at practice, I thought we elevated from Week 1 to Week 2. In practice, I thought it was a great week. There was no way that whatever happened in this game, it was going to be because we weren't locked in, and we didn't have a good week of practice. I thought the guys showed that. They invested in it. Again, we made some mistakes. We paid the price for it in the first half. We did a nice job playing our game in the second."

On the players that stepped up in the locker room at halftime...

"I saw ZB going around. I'd expect that. Felt like Ryan was calling with his side of the ball, and ZB came over. It's not always just cranking it up and screaming and hollering. Sometimes it's just like, calm, cool and collected. And I think guys like ZB got that.

"And Bray, I saw him, I think, in the third quarter, during the game I saw him over there doing it the right way with the offense too. He's got their back.

"Keelon went over to the other side and just owned some of the things that he fell short on in the first half that put us in a tough spot. So I think that was kind of some of the things that stuck out to me. I think there were more guys in that too that just caught the wind, getting ready to go out there and knowing it's not just a two-quarter game, it's a four-quarter game."

On the decision to commit to running the ball in the second half...

"Again, I think it was just, we felt like the run game was there. I mean, I really felt that. Again, we got behind the chains with penalties in the first half. We got sacked a couple times. And I felt like there was some execution that was happening, that there were some lanes. And sometimes when you give a quarterback the green light to have the RPOs, and you can see that, hey, it was blocked up well, you live with that. And so, just kind of continue to balance that, but I felt like the run game was there in the first half. It didn’t maybe show up on the scoreboard or the stat sheet, but as the second half went along, I think they helped take some pressure off Keelon, staying ahead of the chains, not having the penalties that we had in the first half really allowed us to play a good half of football. Field position was a big deal in the second half with the shorter fields, as well. And then again, the run game, Daniel, I can envision Daniel running towards our bench there, almost scoring, then hammering it in to finish the drive. Man, that helps out a quarterback a lot.” 

On the momentum swings of stops in the second half...

"Those are big stops whenever you have. And again, when we faced one, and I’m losing track now, we had the one where we felt we had got off the field, and they went for a fourth down and then fumbled it, and then had to go back out there. And that was a tough one to swallow right there because we mentally felt like you got the stop and then you gotta go out there. I know that was some of the points that we gave up there too. So I credit our defense. I think those moments when you get to fourth-down opportunities, they did a good job, got the momentum turned. I mean, third down for us right now, you can tell that we’ve been working on it, and guys understand the scheme. It isn’t like we weren’t working on it two years ago and last year. But I think we’ve only given up one third down now in two games. It was one third down in two games. And so, that’s a credit to the guys going out there, playing hard, playing fast. Calls have gotta be good, too, gotta be helpful. But just there’s a good belief and confidence in our guys going out there and getting the job done if you just do your one-eleventh."

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