KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer spoke to reporters after the Crimson Tide's 24-17 loss to Tennessee on Saturday. Alabama dropped to 5-2 (2-2 SEC) and will next host No. 19 Missouri next Saturday.

Here's everything DeBoer told reporters after the Tide's loss.

"Yeah, obviously, a tough loss, a frustrating loss," he said. "You know, we've had two now. And we just can't play team football. Can't bring it together. One side of the ball has highlighted moments and the other side, you know, stumbles. Some missed opportunities. And, you know, you try to try to look inward after every game and we got to continue the same I know we got a locker room that's hurting. There's always, I guess, a common feel in the locker room after a loss. But, these guys, I have no doubt in my mind that they poured everything into the preparation. You know, just, just frustrated we can't get over the hump."

"Well, I mean, you know, there's a lot of things that can go for you, I mean, either way, there's going to be a punt and you're going to get the ball back, if you stop them, and you're gonna have to have a touchdown either way on our end. If we can just hold them to a field goal, you're gonna have to get a stop on three straight plays, use your three time outs. And so, you know, it can go both ways, right? But you're more than likely, if you stop them, gonna get the punt back and have to go the length of the field anyway. And so, you know, you're getting yourself one more play. And they did a good job checking in and out of something. You know it's a chance for us. I know what it looks like when you watch it, but there's a game plan reason where we would do something, where I understand where you're throwing shorts the sticks as well.

So, you know, hats off to them, they played it the way they needed to, adjusted. And I couldn't burn a timeout when we're in that situation because I knew we needed to three for the next play, or for the for the defensive sequence when we got to that."

"It's a little bit of everything. It's false starts, you know, just getting off to a rough start there, and then there's a couple more intermixed in there. There's some mental mistakes, you know. The two games, right, earlier in the year and this one, you just can't get over the hump and it's going to put you in situations where you got your backs to the wall. And we can't kill ourselves like that. There's times where you see like we're locked in, but we got to be better. There's no question. You can't win a football game when you have mistakes like we had out there, and all the penalties."

"They're, I mean, they're physical defense up front, you know. And we knew we had to have a mix of run and pass and, try to try to use J-Mil in the run game as well, you know. But just trying to get a flow, trying to trying to find times where you can get in a rhythm. The penalties hurt us, you know, to where you're behind the sticks, and, you know, trying to stay patient. You're trying to, even at the end, not the last drive but the second to last drive, try to stay with it and know that if you can just put one play on top of the other, you know, you can move the ball down the field. But when you don't have the explosives, it's just too hard to stack plays a whole length of the field. You have to add some type of explosive play."

"I told them they're there. These are the speeches I'm not good at, you know? You gotta look inward first and make sure you know that everything you're doing is right. And then you know anyone that you sense that has any type of questioning, you got to make sure you bring them with. The thing I know that with our guys, there's enough vets that know exactly what you're talking about to where it eats at them and we got to continue to mesh the vets with the new guys, the ones that need to continue to understand what this what this program stands for and what it's all about.

You know, I don't question the fight. I mean, I don't question the prep. I don't question the work that was put in. These guys came ready, and Tuesday's practice was great as far as the energy, and really felt like we were on track each and every day. But we just can't mesh right now the offense and defense together and play great team football. There's times when we got to be able to separate ourselves and have that killer instinct. And right now, you know, we don't do that. And it's not like they're not trying. It's just the execution needs to be better. And, you know, one play can to kill an offensive drive. And then defense does a nice job and then they get into their tempo, which we knew if we kept them out of that rhythm we'd be all right. They got into it there, the third quarter. And, you know, it was tough to stop. It starts with running the football for them."

"No, I don't think so. I mean, I think that some of them, there is an intentional element to making sure he's part of the game plan. And then some of it was just, you know, the progressions and where it ended up. Unfortunately, we just had a couple misses, right? We hit one or two of those — the interception early in the game we had a good little rhythm right there. I mean, some of those hurt. But you have to have confidence in your players to continue to go back and go make the next play. And we obviously have a lot of belief in every one of our players. You know, he's a guy that can go make those plays anytime. So we got to continue to make sure he's a strong part of the game plan."