Memories are painfully clear for No. 10 Alabama after last season’s upset loss to Vanderbilt in Nashville.
Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Kalen DeBoer has his team approaching the No. 16 Commodores in a different light this time than a year ago. The Crimson Tide came into that game fresh off a big win over Georgia and truly overlooked the Commodores.
“I’m not going to argue against that,” DeBoer told reporters on Monday. “You’ve got to handle success, and you’ve got to come back every single week in this league.”
“Every coach I talk to at midfield, that’s what the conversation’s about is here you go again. You’ve got to reload mentally, physically, emotionally to during the week, get prepared at the highest level you possibly can, and go play ball,” he added. “Physically, it’s going to be a battle, and mentally, you’ve got to be ready to respond, and so yeah, we didn’t handle success last year well. You can’t argue that.”
“I also think they did a nice job executing in critical times and made plays. No different this week, right? And our success that we had on Saturday, none of it matters,” DeBoer continued. “None of it carries over. The third down stops, the third down execution on offense doesn’t matter. Points don’t carry over; every game is its own game. There’s new matchups that are going to be presented in this game that are different than last week. So just like I talk about every play being its own play, this game is its own game.”
Alabama notably beat Georgia last Saturday in Athens. The Crimson Tide will get a chance to follow up a win over Georgia against Vandy differently this time around on Saturday.
Kalen DeBoer Wants Crimson Tide to Avoid a Letdown
That Vanderbilt loss in 2024 sent things the wrong direction for the Tide with two more losses, and DeBoer wants to keep his team focused after an emotional win against Georgia.
“I think we all know that you don’t win because of that, and you don’t lose because of that, but I get it,” DeBoer said. “I think for us, you’ve got to learn from what you’ve been through, right? And so, the handling of success last year and then what had happened for the different reasons it happened, and then where we’re at now and the opportunity that we have in front of us, and what we’ve gone through, you take your past experiences and you have to just keep learning.”
“And you’ve got to keep understanding how we got now back, got our feet somewhat underneath of us, OK, and have a little bit of momentum, OK. And it’s just really, again, being intentional. I refer to that in different ways here. Moving with purpose. That’s a common theme right now,” DeBoer added.
Alabama Looks to Limit Penalties
Limiting mistakes will be key for Alabama against Vanderbilt, and the Tide will seek to build on the reduction in penalties from last weekend at Georgia.
“And to do it on the road in that environment, proud of the guys the way they continue to stay the course. I know they’ve got it in them,” DeBoer said. “The want-to is there. It’s just not living in the gray area. That’s been a common theme for us, going back to February when we broke all the ways and things you needed to do to win. We worked on the category of penalties.”
“Focusing on where we fell short a year ago. Focused on other teams, NFL teams, college teams, making sure we covered all the scenarios,” DeBoer added. “You’re never going to cover all of them. New ones pop up all the time. Just doing your best to make sure the guys understand you can’t relax for one moment.”
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