Everything Kalen DeBoer said after Alabama's A-Day game

Kalen DeBoer made his first on-field impression as the head coach of Alabama in front of nearly 73,000 spectators. The Crimson Tide concluded its annual A-Day game with Alabama's offense taking down the Tide's defense 34-28 Saturday.

After the game, DeBoer spoke to local media about his first appearance on the field in front of spectators at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

Here's everything DeBoer said after Alabama's A-Day game.

Fun day just all together. Obviously, it culminates in the scrimmage and I'm gonna go spend some time with the guys and their families. We got a chance to meet with the parents this morning – met with some different groups. Got a chance to get Coach Saban in front of the team, that was pretty cool. Just got a chance to see him and that's been since January really when that happened so really a lot of cool things.

Scrimmage-wise, shoot if it was a half, right it would've been a tail of two halves but that's why we keep playing. So many things that we get to learn from this scrimmage depending on what side of the ball you're on.

So I thought overall I counted — I was trying to keep track during so I might be off — but I think we had six penalties between the two sides, which over 85 plays probably roughly, that's not too bad. That's actually improved each and every scrimmage. So looking at those things, we're improving. Rushing touchdowns offensively. The response defensively, getting down early and some of those things. Little things that the game brings with the TV, ESPN broadcasting it and us working through TV timeouts and when to take the huddle and just talking through that. Right now, not that big of a deal if we're out there standing over the ball but it will be this fall. A lot of things with guys who never had that game action, starting from the quarterbacks and to the rest of the offense and defensive sides so I thought it was a good overall scrimmage. Both sides had their moments.

Jam [Miller], Richard [Young] — I thought they did a better job of when they saw a whole today, they hit it. Especially early on there were some seams and they're not dancing which means they're getting more and more comfortable with the schemes. They're trusting the offensive line.

There were a couple more tackles broken, which goes both ways. You want to see more tackles made by the defense. There were more tackles broken early on in the scrimmage than what I've seen. We've been pretty sure with our tackling up until the early part of the scrimmage today. Then they responded and did a better job.

You saw, he does a great job back there. You've got full confidence with a lot of those guys back there but Ty I thought again, he's just stayed consistent and gotten better throughout spring. Never really had any drops in each and every practice. So you see what he does out there and he's accurate. He knows when to put touch on it. I saw the one ball on the deep crosser. He's got good awareness.

I thought all the quarterbacks did a better job of pushing the pocket at the right time. That's something I know we've been emphasizing rather than just sit back and let that rush on the edges get to you. He had a good feel in all those ways. I think he's got a command of the offense for sure.

That's what we needed to do. A little bit out of necessity, just with some guys getting beat up, and just being careful, too, with guys being dinged up and limiting the number of snaps up front. It was good for those guys to work in because you do see a difference with the execution on the offensive line when one or two new guys are inserted. There's just another level of communication. These are the moments you want to do that.

Come this fall, when we're into the season and playing games, you want to look back and count on these moments where guys were inserted and had to do some things where it was different groups working together. Good learning moment not just for them, but for the offensive line in general.

They're doing good. If we had another week — for sure, if we had two weeks — but if we had another week of spring ball, by the end of next week — not that I'm the one that clears them — but I think they'd probably be really close to being ready to go. Just wanted to be careful and not push it. We don't want to set them back when they're right on pace. They're right where we expected them to be based on what they each had, which were completely different types of injuries.

I think he had a great day. I'm not sure if that was him right at the end there, but you guys saw it right away. That's the one that sticks out to me, the catch and contact, he high-pointed the ball way down the field — that was him, right? I thought it was him but I'm watching a lot of things — but that's what he does. He's a physical guy. When the ball is in the air, it's his. He's got that mindset. I think the quarterbacks really believe in him. He's a leader because that's just naturally what he does, but he's really tried to work in with the receiving corps, become one of them, and he had some opportunities today and took advantage of them. He's going to be a good one for us, that's for sure.

We go back so far, we couldn't even get to the point where you could go full pads back then, with the rules. The spring game was the tempo. There are a lot of differences. There were 72,000 people here today. We were just shy of that there. But the cool thing is, football is football, and what you see at all the places you're at are guys who want to get out there and they're excited about the opportunity to go make plays and play the game they love. Today was a special game.

I think it's come along for all the quarterbacks, so for Jalen, it's something that's progressed throughout the spring. I don't think any of our guys, because it's timing, confidence, read and progressions, things like that. It's identifying, hey, that's my one-on-one, so where do I put the ball? I think it's been something that's gotten to this point. It's great to see him take that next step and have that progression. The last week or two, that's been pretty consistent. Early on, I can't say any of the quarterbacks were as dialed in and those plays would've been made. But that's what got the offense off to a hot start in the scrimmage, with those explosive plays.

I love that we can come out of the locker room, kickoff, and we're ready to go. Throw, catch, protection — especially in the first half or three quarters, the protection was as good as we've had. Some of that is attributed early on to being more vanilla defensively, things like that, but the offense stayed ahead of the chains and stayed in position to be a dual-threat, with run and pass options, and take your shots when they're there.

I think today was probably the day where it felt — seeing the guys on the Walk of Champions, just seeing that and feeling the energy and excitement of what it might be on a Saturday. That was a lot of fun. Being in the locker room. Just the excitement. Out there, as hard as the guys were playing, they were out there looking out for each other, too. I don't care if it was offense, defense, they played the game the way it was supposed to be played with energy, but also, they didn't put their teammates at risk by going up and making that potential play that could put someone at risk. The energy and excitement leading up to the spring game was something that hit me today.

I caught that a little bit early on, just enjoying the moment, and as much as anything, making sure the guys did, too. You take it in, then emphasize to the guys, 'Hey, enjoy this moment, you guys worked hard for this.' For a lot of these guys, this was their first A-Day, too. A lot of freshmen and transfers. I made sure they relished this day. When you say those things, you do it yourself as well.

That would've been the difference in the scoring. With the scoring system we use, those takeaways can even up the score in a hurry. The offense has done a pretty good job. I don't think in any of the scrimmages, the quarterbacks have thrown a pick in all three of them. There were times when the ball was on the ground in some of the scrimmages, but the defense, flying around, that's caused some turnovers throughout the spring, and got their share of interceptions in the different scrimmages that we've had that aren't part of the big three when we're live.

When it matters most, you're proud. I noticed some ball security, too, that I was impressed with. I think that's come a long ways. I watched a drill on Thursday. It's a circuit that we run for ball security for these guys. You hammer and scream at them over and over for 15 practices, and you're like, 'Man, I don't know if they're getting it,' but you see Thursday how far we've come if you flip on film of that drill compared to the first day.

Really, just not worrying about the score. I heard that from that side, just don't worry about it and continue to get better and be in the moment. They got the guys on the ground when they had their chance to tackle. Play the next play. We talk in terms of a 1-0 mindset, so win the next rep. They did that more than the offense did in the second part of the scrimmage. The flip side is, there were some easy plays the offense needed to make, catching the ball in particular. For whatever reason, those are some great learning moments that we'll carry into the summer, on both sides — why you don't stop playing, and why you have to keep your head and stay focused and locked in the entire time you're on the football field.