There was a feeling that maybe Alabama shouldn’t have taken the field. The Crimson Tide lost badly to Georgia in the Southeastern Conference championship game and a strong Notre Dame team was knocked out of the field. Then, rumors about him possibly leaving for Michigan were serious enough that he issued a statement saying he was happy in Alabama.
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DeBoer expected his players to handle everything well, and they did.
“The question is, is there enough trust within our group that we can see the doubters, we can see the naysayers and continue to play our game,” DeBoer said. “This group is close enough that there have never been accusations. There has never been anything like this.”
The players appreciated the extra fuel.
“I guess we can thank them for that,” Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson said. “I mean, you all wrote us off in a nice way. So I appreciate that.”
Alabama linebacker Deontae Lawson didn’t like the way the media portrayed the Crimson Tide after the loss to Georgia, but he agreed with Simpson’s sentiment.
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“That’s when we’re at our best,” he said.
The Crimson Tide had lost their previous two games to Oklahoma, and it looked like maybe the Sooners had their number. Oklahoma took a 17-0 lead into the second quarter.
But DeBoer and his team proved resilient. The Crimson Tide scored 27 straight points en route to a 34-24 victory that earned them a spot in the Rose Bowl quarterfinals against No. 1 seed Indiana.
DeBoer said he was never worried, even when Oklahoma took control early.
“You can’t score a 17-point touchdown,” he said. “You have to score just one point, even if it’s three points. And that’s what our guys did.”
Now, the Crimson Tide is closer to where they hope to be this time of year.
“We’re not done yet,” Simpson said. “That’s all I have to say.”