What Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer said about Jalen Milroe’s game against Okahoma

Alabama football quarterback Jalen Milroe played the worst game of his 2024 season on Saturday. The redshirt junior threw three interceptions, including a pick six that all but doomed any chance of a Crimson Tide comeback in the 24-3 loss at Oklahoma.

Afterwards, UA head coach Kalen DeBoer was asked about Milroe’s turnover. He didn’t put all the blame on his quarterback.

“Early in the game, there are different things,” DeBoer said. “I mean, drops, just flat drops, balls we dropped in the lights, just different, uncharacteristic things, weird things that happened. And I thought he actually put the ball where he was supposed to. We just had to help him out a little bit. The screen pass, they jump it. You have to assume those blocks are going to happen and you’re reading another defender.”

Part of the problem for Milroe was Oklahoma absolutely suffocating him in the race. He finished with just seven yards on the ground and was never able to threaten the Sooners in that area.

The interception return for a touchdown by Kip Lewis in the third quarter was OU’s final score of the night. DeBoer discussed that play and praised Milroe’s fight after it happened.

“I don’t know if he just didn’t see him or predetermined things, but there’s still a lot of play left and I felt like a lot of things he did, he fought and fought and did a lot of things well for our football team,” DeBoer said. “We just all had to get a little better.

“So I thought he kept fighting. I looked at his eyes and I think he’s come a long way all season and just like he wants to go out there and keep leading the team and the guys kept to fight for him. That’s pretty much what I shared with them. Just go out there and keep swinging.”

For DeBoer, offensive tackles came back to the simplest execution.

“There were some things that are pretty easy that just didn’t happen for us,” DeBoer said. “Short little concepts that would have moved the chains, easy throws and catches, some drops early that take you out of bounds, some third down conversions that we missed, an explosive play where we can’t find the ball. And it was some of the momentum stuff that really took the wind out of our sails a little bit.”