Alabama’s chances at the College Football Playoff didn’t come to an end Saturday, but the Crimson Tide will have a harder time of things now.
Oklahoma knocked off Alabama for the second time in as many years on Saturday, capturing a 23-21 victory in Tuscaloosa to send the home team to its second loss of the season. The work-week will determine where the two schools line up in the CFP rankings and who is in and who isn’t with just two weeks left in the regular season.
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Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer felt like his team should have won, but the turnovers proved to be too much. Now the Tide’s season is on the line.
Here’s what DeBoer had to say after the game.
Opening statement
Just really disappointed in the outcome. We played a lot of great snaps out there. But the turnover battle, obviously, got killed there. That became the game. We’ve done a good job of taking care of it. Done a good job of taking it off of teams. Seventeen points coming off of turnovers and the short field where they got a field goal. We missed our opportunities, for sure. I have no doubt about how to respond. The guys are disappointed, frustrated about how this ended up here because that’s the moment we’re in.
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On the frustration
That’s it. I just feel like throughout the game, we didn’t really feel like we couldn’t move the ball, couldn’t put it in the end zone. There was just these one-off plays that were the takeaways. Just became an uphill battle. If you can take the lead, 21-20, then potentially become a whole different game. The guys are going to fight. I know the character of the team. That’s the part that’s just really frustrating for everyone. You win the time of possession. You win everything pretty much. Total yards. You come away with the loss. They’re a good football team.
On the field goal before halftime
It’s a little bit of the same as the last time we missed one. Get a little better snap and we can make the kick, too. It’s a little bit of everything. Execution from the snap to the kick. We’ve got to find a way to kick it through. When it’s not better, we’ve got to find a way to execute everything in the whole operation.
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On fourth-quarter strategy
You’re just trying to get the ball out of your end zone with the ball on our own 6. You’re just trying to get a first down then you’re trying to get another one. Felt good about the situation. Just trying to get a field goal to win it. But it’s more about getting out of your own territory. Even if we had to punt, you’re thinking, two timeouts and the two-minute warning, that we can flip the field and get an opportunity there. Just the grind that it was, it becomes a situation where you get down to two minutes.
On offense in recent games
I think we had almost 275 yards in the first half. What’s disappointing is the turnover. Because even the interception, we were working deep into their territory. We just gave them the ball in our own territory a couple times there. It wasn’t perfect, but we’re facing a very good defense and we understood that. I felt like we were executing better today than probably we had the last couple weeks against, again, a very good defense. Big mistakes are the ones that hurt us.
This article originally appeared on Sooners Wire: Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer’s remarks after losing to Oklahoma
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