Kalen DeBoer credits Lotzeir Brooks for giving Alabama a spark with ‘big play’ vs. Oklahoma
By Sydney Hunte
Published:
Kalen DeBoer and Alabama were in big trouble on Friday night in their first-round College Football Playoff game against Oklahoma.
Trailing the Sooners 17-0, the Crimson Tide faced a 3rd-and-5 from their own 30-yard line with about five minutes gone by in the second quarter. Ty Simpson would connect with true freshman wide receiver Lotzeir Brooks for a 29-yard completion to move the Tide into Sooner territory.
Six plays later, they were in the end zone. DeBoer opted to go for it on 4th-and-2 from the Oklahoma 10, with Brooks fighting past several Sooners defenders for the score. It sparked a run of 27 unanswered points for the Tide, who came away with a 34-24 win to advance to the Rose Bowl quarterfinal against top-seeded Indiana.
“That moment you’re thinking, ‘Gosh, it’d be great just to get three points on the board and get a little bit of momentum,'” Kalen DeBoer told Kirk Herbstreit, who called Friday’s game in Norman with Chris Fowler, on College GameDay. “We got to that spot, and there was a little bit of rhythm to what we were doing.”
DeBoer noted the trust he has in his players to deliver in pressure situations, something the team’s practiced this season, he said.
“That was definitely a big play. Got us going, got seven points on the board,” he added. “And even at that moment, it really felt like we had a good chance to play the long game and be in there, have a chance to win at the end.”
Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
