NORMAN, Okla. (AP) \u2014 Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer heard the critics and the questions heading into his team\u2019s College Football Playoff game against Oklahoma on Friday.<\/p>\n
There was the sentiment that maybe Alabama shouldn\u2019t have made the field. The Crimson Tide lost badly to Georgia in the Southeastern Conference championship game and a strong Notre Dame squad got left out of the field. Then, rumors about him possibly leaving for Michigan were serious enough for him to issue a statement saying he was happy at Alabama.<\/p>\n
DeBoer expected his players to handle it all well, and they did.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe doubt piece — there\u2019s enough confidence within our group to where we can see the doubters, we can see the naysayers and just go still play our game,\u201d DeBoer said. \u201cThis group is tight enough to where there\u2019s never been any finger pointing. There\u2019s ever been anything like that.\u201d <\/p>\n
The players appreciated the extra fuel.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess we can thank you guys for that,\u201d Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson said. \u201cI mean, y\u2019all kind of wrote us off in a nice sort of way. So, appreciate that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alabama linebacker Deontae Lawson didn\u2019t like the way the media portrayed the Crimson Tide after the loss to Georgia, but he agreed with Simpson\u2019s sentiment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s when we\u2019re at our best,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Crimson Tide had lost their previous two games to Oklahoma, and it looked like maybe the Sooners had their number. Oklahoma jumped out to a 17-0 lead in the second quarter.<\/p>\n
But DeBoer and his team proved resilient. The Crimson Tide rattled off 27 straight points on the way to a 34-24 win that earned them a spot in a Rose Bowl quarterfinal against No. 1 seed Indiana.<\/p>\n
DeBoer said he was never worried, even when Oklahoma took control early.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t go score a 17-point touchdown,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to score one score, even if it\u2019s three points. And that\u2019s what our guys did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, the Crimson Tide are closer to where they expect to be at this time of year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not done yet,\u201d Simpson said. \u201cThat\u2019s all I got to say.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here<\/a>. AP college football: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-football-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-football<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NORMAN, Okla. (AP) \u2014 Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer heard the critics and the questions heading into his team\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[9604,5183,1603,35956,1607,2662,399,2652,152186,1303,398,396,397,9601,9600,6344,6162,58019,99],"class_list":["post-360084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-al-state-wire","tag-alabama","tag-alabama-crimson-tide","tag-alabama-crimson-tide-football","tag-college-football","tag-college-sports","tag-football","tag-indiana","tag-local-news-for-apple","tag-michigan","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-ok-state-wire","tag-oklahoma","tag-oklahoma-sooners","tag-oklahoma-sooners-football","tag-rose-bowl-game","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}