Kalen DeBoer Wins Big in First Game as Alabama Head Coach - Barnes on Bama Ep. 25

[Music] welcome in episode 25 of the Barnes onama podcast I'm your host Owen Barnes and we've got some things to discuss it was officially game week and kayin dour's first game is in the books and it was an absolute Thriller um everything that could have gone right did and there's definitely some things that the team's going to have to work on there's some good some bad some things I still have questions about but we're going to discuss everything about kin dore's opening 63 to0 win over Western Kentucky in this week's episode um I will be having a preview episode of the South Florida game for anybody that's curious for this upcoming week that'll be coming out on Wednesday and in that episode I'll also briefly cover the basketball recruits that were at this game um there will be some tidbits talking about that but I just want to spend this episode covering what happened the good the bad the ugly um that happened in this football game that happened on Saturday so let's get right into the show so as I mentioned this is episode 25 the barns Obama podcast my name is Owen Barnes if you this is your first time watching I would recommend you you know liking commenting subscribing you know if there's anything you have questions about um throw them down in the bottom I do read everything if you there's something you want me to cover or look into for the future I'm happy to do so um so I will mention I was at this game um I sat in the student section with my girlfriend um and it was it was an awesome game um the game started very oddly actually um there was something that dor mentioned he had never seen before and for those of you that may have been at the game um or even on TV and there was a little bit of confusion as to what happened what really happened it was not the helmet Communications that were going wrong apparently the actual headsets on the sideline for Western Kentucky completely went out their headsets completely went out the problem with that is Alabama has our offensive coordinator up in the Press Box and apparently the NCAA rule is if one sideline headset goes out the other sideline can't use their headsets either so it was a full headset issue and then what happened is the headsets came back online so they thought they were ready to resume and then they actually went back offline and so they hurried and got our offensive coordinator down from the booth and were able to get him on the sideline and that's what the delay was early in the game um a lot of people thought that it was helmet Communications and I guess helmet Communications was a part of it but it was not actually the helmets it was just the fact that headsets completely were unable to be used at least for a small portion at the very beginning of that game due to Western Kentucky not being able to use theirs so just wanted to throw that little tidbit out there if you weren't able to see the press conference that dbor put on after the game that's what he kind of um mentioned after the game um you know as to what happened so the way I want to talk about this game is I want to go through the offense and then through the defense and I'm going to go through the good the bad and then the things that I still have questions about right so we're going to start with the offense first off if you had to if I had to give you like a one sentence thoughts on the offense is that we super explosive and they have a lot of ways that they can be successful right when we're talking about the good of this offense I thought that the plays were called to Bas take best advantage of the Personnel that we have the best way that I could say something like that is when you looked at like Jaylen milro jayen milro was not asked to be a pocket passer it was very clear that there were plays that were set up to be able to use his talent of being able to run the football right two of his running touchdowns were one of them was a there was a zero Blitz on and jayen they pull both guards the guards pick up the blitzers Jaylen runs free into the end zone the other one Jaylen does a fake pitch and then hits an absolute burst which personally was probably the fastest acceleration that I've seen Jaylen do in person um I was at most of the home games last year and have been watching him obviously his whole career and there was a burst that happened in that fake pitch um play that just was like a immediate burst to get to the end zone I thought it was one of the best plays of Jaylen but to me it just felt like dor and the offensive strategy just in general was fully to take advantage of who is successful and what they're successful at right on the play that Kendrick law scores it was a Jaylen does a good job um avoiding the sack stepping up in the pocket kept his eyes downfield got it to his playmaker and you know law is a really Shifty quick guy you get it to him in space and let the playmaker make the make the play right perfect example I thought a lot of the plays were really really great I thought the play calling in general was awesome um I also thought that there were a few throws that Jaylen had made that he made better than he had made honest most of last year right there was the play that he stepped the play that I just mentioned where he avoided the sack and stepped up and threw to Kendrick law I think Jaylen could have probably run the ball maybe 10 yards but he throws it to law and log as a touchdown from about 25 out right then you have the play where he throws it deep um obviously the Deep ball that he hits um Ryan Williams on to score the touchdown was great but actually the second touchdown to Ryan Williams is the one kind of I like the best um they have Five Guys rushing Jaylen steps up in a clean pocket throws a perfect strike to Ryan Williams gets it in stride Ryan Williams gets the ball and then obviously does what Ryan Williams does and we'll talk more about him later on when we kind of talk about my current players of the game um but he scores on the touchdown after breaking a tackle I thought that it was absolutely awesome both of those throws in my opinion were like perfect examples of Jaylen you know doing what he needed to do to get the ball in his playmaker's hand and then kind of let them do the rest but we didn't ask him to stand back in the pocket and be M Jones cuz he's not right he's an athlete we need to put him in spaces to Showcase his athleticism and I thought that he did an incredible job of that I thought that the game plan was really really good from that standpoint the other place that I thought was absolutely incredible on the offensive side of the end if we're still talking about the good is the running backs you know when I did the preview episode I talked about how my question marks for the game were Jaylen the receivers and the offensive line I thought that the running backs would be good and honestly they were better than advertised right they were better than we would expect um jam Miller and Justice Haynes look to be the best running back du in the country um they they absolutely were explosive both of them had super long runs for touchdowns they were hitting gaps they were just kind of scoring it will you know they were doing whatever they needed to do with the ball in their hands um they were I think they both caught a pass out of the backfield it just overall the running back Duo was absolutely incredible and you can't say enough good things about them our running backs you know for this season are going to be absolutely stacked and I thought that theyve been great we're talking about the bad there were a few things on the offensive end that I thought we were going to have to clean up right there was a bad snap that led to a fumble I have to mention the snap um we have you know horror thoughts from last year I I think that this was a miscommunication between the center and the quarterback I don't think that this is something we're going to foresee going on because I thought the snap placement on most of the snaps were completely fine this specific snap um dor talked about it after the game that it it to him felt like Parker and Jaylen were just kind of on a Parker was making one read Jaylen was making another and the snap just maybe didn't get in the right spot um and it went over jaylen's head the other one is Jaylen had a fumble that that ended up causing or he actually had a separate fumble that one was a fumble that we lost there was another fumble that Jaylen got but this one he was able to get back but in my opinion this was a poor play call because what happened and dbor mentioned this is the first time he's ever seen this happen but what happened was your guard and Center left guard and left Center or and your Center sorry both lost their helmet so Booker and braford both lost their helmet so you had to replace your guard and your Center we'll talk about it here in a second but Kaden Proctor also was injured in pregame so you also had a brand new left tackle and this was on the first Alabama possession so the first possession you've got a brand new left tackle brand new left guard brand new center for this play and Alabama called a pass play and the line just broke down Jaylen got hit from his Blind Side lost the ball in my opinion that was just a bad play call um I understand that you know it was you know you were were behind the chains and you were trying to throw the ball and kind of get ahead of that but I think you got to have a quicker pass you got to have one that you know is much quicker to develop because knowing the linemen that you're missing in that play call right I understand that under normal circumstances maybe you're okay with taking a shot um because I thought that you know like the shot we took for Ryan Williams I thought was a perfect timing um but I think in that specific moment because of who you were missing on the line you can't take that shot at least personally don't think that we should have taken the shot we ended up taking it Jaylen does get the fumble back we punt it no harm no foul we end up getting the interception the next Drive um from Western Kentucky so it's completely okay but long term I think that's something we just have to think about from a coaching staff standpoint the other thing that I'll mention if we're talking about the bat on the offensive side is penalties do seem to be a little bit of an issue um we got called for a few holds um there were seven Penal in the game which isn't an insane amount but it definitely did seem to you know stop a couple of plays something that I think we need to just kind of keep an eye on it's not like the worst I've ever seen it you know Alabama had some games where we had 12 and 13 penalties so it's definitely not the worst we've even seen in the last five years but it's definitely something you're going to want to keep an eye on especially when you play tougher competition um to have seven seven penalties in this game that got out of hand if that gets to be a closer game that could definitely impact the game much more and then the place that I you know still have questions and I'm just mentioned Kaden Proctor so Proctor went out I have heard from a friend of mine that has some sources in the athletic department that he has heard that it may not be too bad um we'll see we'll see um when um coach was asked about it in the postgame press conference he specifically said that um they were going to have to look at it today right this is I'm recording this on Sunday um that he was going to be looking at it today and hopefully we would know more this week but you know what I have heard seems to think that Proctor may be okay but with that um Elijah pritet had to shift from right tackle to left tackle um wilcom forby ended up winning that battle you know we talked a lot about who was going to be who was going to be your starting right tackle looks like for won the battle um so pritet moved from the right to the left side for this game so it did cause a few issues including that sack I was talking about early but earlier but I do think that that fumble may have also been caused by the missing Center and guard as well the other place that I you know have some questions and I think that dor even mentioned it so I think he's you know in tonely aware of this but I want to see us be able to sustain longer drives um the explosiveness is awesome and it's something that I hope that this team you know has moving forward you're never going to be upset if the team is explosive but the ability to sustain a drive to chew out the clock to give your de defense some rest is something we're going to need down the line right I'm not saying you're going to need it next game I'm not even going to say you're need it against Wisconsin you may not even need it against Georgia right but at some point this season you're going to need to be able to sustain a drive and get your defense some rest and that's something that I would like to see they were able to sustain a drive later on in the game um when some of the backups came in but the starters um we didn't have a lot of sustained drives now that's partially because of the explosiveness right we had a couple of runs that broke free from touchdowns so you know it's kind of two sides of the same coin you can't be too upset about being explosive and I'm definitely not but it's just something the ability to sustain a longer Drive is something I would like to see um because in the first half Alabama had under seven minutes time of possession whereas Western Kentucky was sitting around 22 or 23 um now that even out where Alabama ended up actually winning the time of possession battle mostly due to some of the fourth quarter drives where we held the ball the majority of the quar um but it like I said it is something that I would like to see us be able to sustain a longer drive not something I need to see this next game but I do want to see it obviously moving forward so that's kind of what my thoughts are on the offense there were a lot of really really good things that we saw um we had huge games out of Ryan Williams I thought that Jaylen took what the defense gave him um we didn't call a ton of pass plays maybe 15 or so um with Jaylen scrambling on you know five or six of them and then I think he only completed or attempted nine passes and was seven of nine so it's a standpoint of you know we didn't try to stand back and throw the ball a ton I think part of that was by Design part of that's obviously just you know how the game went by but you know there's not a ton we can take away but I definitely do do have some takeaways and that's kind of what my thoughts are um I still have question marks about the offensive line I think I still will until we Face some better competition and see the um if Kaden Proctor is fully able to come back as I expect he will be see what the actual starting offensive line does look like you know with Proctor in there and everybody not injured um that is something I am looking to see so that's kind of my thoughts on the offensive line um I do think that the offense was super explosive and was great um I was very happy with what I saw but definitely have some questions kind of that I want to see answered as we kind of move into next week so we're going to shift over to the defense and the defense admittedly I had the most questions about coming into this season I thought I believed in um dbor and I believed in our offense I believed in Nick Sheridan I believed that they would be able to call have a game plan I thought the dwar was a good enough offensive coach that he was going to make the most out of his players the defense is the place where I had the most questions not to say I didn't believe in Kane wck because I absolutely did I thought that anybody has that has the ability to go up to a head coach um and you know as successful as he has been that he would be able to get the defense right but I wasn't so sure that he would be able to get it what felt like as fixed as quickly as it was because the defense yesterday looked like one of the best defenses Alabama's had in a while um the defense yesterday um reminded you of some of the Alabama defenses of old the defense yesterday just looked absolutely incredible quite frankly and like I said we're going to go through The Good the Bad and the play where I still have some questions so on the good I have to start with Keon Sab um a lot of talk this offense was made about the losses in the transfer portal of Isaiah Bond and Caleb DS Isaiah Bond seems to have been immediately replaced by Ryan Williams the absolute stud 17-year-old freshman and in my opinion Caleb DS was completely replaced by Keon sap um Alabama loses a top safety in the portal and picks up Michigan safety a top safety in the portal and Kad Sab is plug andplay and looks absolutely incredible and a fit for Kor swarm defense kayin or sorry and Kane wck SW swarm defense wck mentioned in his press conference about his defense that safeties have a lot of eyes on the quarterback and that they make a lot of plays on the ball and you know apparently there have been plenty people that have talked to wck in the kind of leadup and he had mentioned that Sab has been looking EX excellent and every bit of excellent as he looked in the fall camp and in Spring he looks here right Keon Sab looks absolutely incredible he made two great plays on the ball um one of them it really looked like Finley just didn't pay attention to the zones quite frankly um because he threw it right at Sab Zone that first pick the second pick was just all Sab in my opinion Sab made a great play on the ball had eyes on the quarterback was able to read read react and really made a great play on the ball and then a really good return to set up great field position I really thought that um our defensive backs in general it was a place where I mentioned I had the most questions coming into into the game yesterday and I thought that the defensive backs by and large looked absolutely incredible there weren't any huge busted coverage plays there weren't any you know just guys running free not to say that you know you expect to see it but that's something that you know first game in a new system like and a team that likes to air the ball out it was something that I I definitely wanted to see um especially since early on we picked off Finley so early that it was very clear that Western Kentucky was going to have to throw the ball they were not going to be able to run the ball to be successful in this game and so with them airing it out you still didn't see any busted coverages um and so I thought that that was awesome like I said there's definitely going to be things that they have to clean up they're always always will be but I thought that for a first game the defensive backs looked great the other place that I think that you know Alabama is absolutely stacked when we're talking about that running back core on the offense it's the linebacking core on the defense Deontay Lawson and jii Campbell look incredible that jii Campbell was flying around off the ball was looking absolutely great both of them had nine tackles um they were just flying around I mean simply put both guys looked great um I thought that the linebacking core looked as good as you could have asked for and just overall was absolutely thoroughly impressed with what I saw from those guys um on the pass and on the run so you know simply put the linebackers looked great um and I think that we're in very good hands with with Lawson and Campbell the other thing that I want to mention on the on the good side before we transition over to the bad is that you know you hear whena Kane wck talked about his defense he calls it a swarm defense and the best way to describe what the defense did yesterday was swarming right when you saw a run everybody was in on the tackle when you saw a pass if one guy missed a tackle other people converged in on they were swarming they were flying around um they were hitting hard it really felt like that defense was um really playing as a group right it wasn't one guy in space making a tackle and if that guy misses the tackle they're going to run free for 50 yards it was if you miss it I got your back right that's really what it felt like and overall I thought that the defense played absolutely incredible especially in W's first game we're going to face better teams we're going to face better quarterbacks we're going to face better running backs but I thought in game one we looked incredible right I was very happy with what I saw in the defense and I thought that it was an incredible showing obviously to to hold the shut out given they had a missed field goal but hold the shut out nonetheless absolutely great you know the the second pick that Sab had um they were driving looking like they were going to score and Sab Sab picks it off um at about the 15 yard line I believe you know and then gets the long return to bring it back on the bad side I'm going to be very nitpicky just because I thought the defense looked so good um the places that I would be kind of nitpicky on the defense if I had to give a badge just because I want to be you know give good and bad on both sides is Lawson Deontay Lawson did have a drop pick it didn't hurt us at all in this game and you know it didn't really impact the final score at all but in the future it is something that you're just going to want to see right he made a perfect play he read the quarterback's eyes great he was in the right position he just didn't convert on the actual pick it looked like it would have been a pick six based on the location of where he was um and you know the open Lane that he had to the end zone so it like I said it it didn't cost us at all in this game but it is something that I would like to see him just kind of reel that in and be able to close the H you know even if he doesn't score just to complete the pick is something that I would have liked to have seen the other place that if I had to say bad this kind of goes hand in hand with the long drives that we talked about on the offensive side where the offense wasn't really giving long drives so that may be part of the reason why but they um Western Kentucky did sustain a couple of longer driv drives they had that eight playay Drive which is the one that ended in sabs pick that I just talked about and then they also had a 21pl drive that ended in Downs um that they ended up just you know having a turnover on Downs both of those um I think may have been coupled with the fact that we had a quick strike offense and the defense was playing a lot but having somebody sustain a longer drive it's just something that you don't love to see on the defensive end it felt like we had a little bit at times especially with that 21 play and that eight play Drive of like a b but don't break mentality which I don't have any problem with because at the end of the day they didn't give up six and that's exactly what you want to see um but like I said that's just something if I have to give a bad I was being a little nitpicky of course I and I know that but that if I had to give a bad that's what I would say um that we did give up a couple of longer drives like I said I do think it's partially due to the offense I think that there's plenty of reasons why and I don't think that it's going to be an issue moving forward forward but it's definitely something I want to keep an eye on then on the place that I have questions again this is also going to be a little nitpicky the question that I have is that our defensive line seem to do okay against the run but Western Kentucky got into passing fairly quickly right we knew that they were a mostly pass offense um and a pretty explosive passing offense but we also knew that or if you watch the game realized that because of Alabama scoring quickly and the two interceptions they were up 21 to nothing pretty early in the first quarter and so because of that if Western Kentucky wanted to have any chance or any semblance of a game they were going to have to throw the ball to get back into the game and so I thought that their only runs that they really had were to try to have some level of um balance and it wasn't really right you know early they were running Finley some and I think they had a a little bit of success with it they had a little bit of success with a few draw plays Alabama was able to stop those pretty quickly but it's just something that when we go up against a team that has a much better rushing attack I do have some questions about the defensive line just because we've got some new faces on that line not to say that they're going to be bad they may be perfect it's just the only place that I kind of have questions immediately following this game because I thought that on the passing side I thought that our pass rush our um linebacking core our defensive backs by and large all looked incredible so if I had to give one place that I have questions about leaving this game it's going to be the um going against the run in terms like defensive line um like I said they may be completely fine but we just didn't see a lot of it in this game so if I have to say something that I have questions about following that's probably the answer I'll quickly cover the Special Teams I'm not going to go full um good bad in questions just want to mention a couple of things about it in terms of Specialists it looks like Connor talty is actually going to be doing an AR kickoffs um it's more of just a statement I didn't realize that Graham Nicholson um was only going to be doing extra points in field goals but it looks like Nicholson the um transfer kicker is just doing extra points in field goals and talty's doing kickoffs my gut says that probably has to do with cter uh talty may have a slightly bigger leg um so he just has a Little Bit Stronger leg I don't know that for certain but it's just something to kind of note um Cole Adams looks to be our starting return guy um Adams looked great back there I personally I think that it would not surprise me if at some point this season he returns one for a touchdown um he's really Shifty with the ball in his hands I thought that um there were even a few moments in the game where I thought he was even going to break one loose in this last game I think that Adams looked really great back there really sure-handed um there was one that he didn't fair catch that ended up leading to a block in the back penalty that I thought he maybe should have Fair caught because of how close the Defenders were by the time he caught it and really the only way he wasn't going to get immediately tackled was the Block in the back that ended up kind of breaking him free but obviously got called back um so that's one thing that I would like to see obviously him call that fair catch there so we kind of save the penalty because I think the player that blocked in the back was because of Adams not um doing the fair Catch and I think he was just trying to not get his guy killed um but I think that Adams did a really good job back there and then burnups one of the best punters in the country I mean there's nothing else you can say about it he had a huge um a couple huge punt we didn't call on him a ton but when we did he really flipped the field and I thought that he looked great back there um so really proud of burnup uh proud of all of our Specialists like I said not going to give good bad questions but just wanted to mention them as well because I thought that by and large you know all three facets of the game really looked great um on Saturday so want to go over my players of the game for this this week and I'm sure um there will be guys that are repeated over the course of the season and that's okay right just want to give some shout outs to a couple of guys across um the different um position groups and who I think personally had some of the best games um I'm going to give it to one of them I'm going to give to milro um I thought that in his first game in the new offense his ability to you know step up in the pocket make the good throws um also you know show the burst on the rushing I thought that he looked great Ryan Williams two catches two touchdowns 17 years old I mean what else can you say he looked absolutely great Jam Miller and Justice Haynes like I said this running back Duo is going to be one of the best in the country they both broke out super long runs I thought they looked fine in pass protection um just both guys played great I mean there's nothing else I can really say about it I thought that Jan Miller and Justice Haynes both looked great um Keon Sab I mean two picks in your first game in an Alabama uniform awesome I mean what else can you say about that and then jii Campbell and Deontay Lawson um even though Lawson dropped the pick he still had nine tackles and was flying around on the defensive end he still had one of the best games out there him and Campbell both combined you know both had the nine tackles as I mentioned and just were're really flying around on the defensive end and shuring up the middle of your defense and what else can you say about that right I thought that by and large all three facets of this game were very successful and the team played together and as a group and that's what you want to see right do you have questions going into next week sure right but that's okay right it's only game one this is not the end of the season having question marks going into the next game is completely fine um we're going to talk about those right you're play facing a better quarterback than you faced this past week right I think that the quarterback for um for South Florida is much better um I think that South Florida just has some better athletes I think that South Florida you know I don't think we'll be a full test to show our full potential but they're definitely going to be a better test than Western Kentucky right so I think that that is you know kind of you play the next game and then you got Wisconsin which didn't look great in their first game but still you're at that point facing a power five opponent so you're getting another better level of athlete right so I think by and large we have definitely some answers we still have a few questions and we will cover those games as they come but all in all a 63o win in your first game as an Alabama head coach in the lights in Bryant Denny you got to be happy with that so that's what I wanted to talk about like I said just wanted to cover and recap the game I hope everyone has enjoyed like I said if you do appreciate the content would appreciate if you would comment and like And subscribe down in the bottom like I said if you have any questions at all throw them down there and I'm happy to answer but thank you so much everyone for watching and I will catch you in the next episode Peace oh