Crimson-faced Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer was visibly irate on the sidelines at cornerback Dijon Lee Jr. after the sophomore committed an undisciplined personal foul late in Saturday’s 20-17 loss to Georgia.
DeBoer screamed at Lee for several seconds as the player came off the field after the penalty — for shoving freshman wide receiver Craig Dandridgean to the ground — gave Georgia an automatic first down with under 2:30 to play, enabling the Bulldogs to take a knee three times to run out the clock.
Without the flag, No. 2 Georgia would have faced third down, and sixth-ranked Alabama still would have gotten the ball back with a stop.
“We preach emotional maturity, and I really feel strong that across the board we had that with our team and would’ve never expected that to happen,” DeBoer said after the game. “You got to give yourself a chance. You’re out there giving everything you got. You just got to give yourself a chance. And so, emotional maturity is what it comes down to. And we’ve been pretty good at that going on the last two years.
“Obviously, the moment comes up like we had just now, we didn’t respond the right way.”
Lee did not speak to the media afterward, and deleted his Instagram and X accounts.
“He’s my brother ’til we die,” senior safety Keon Sabb said of Lee. “So obviously, I try to uplift him.
“But there’s a standard that we need to play with. And on that play, he wasn’t up to the standard, and it will be addressed.”
DeBoer also was shown screaming at the officials earlier in the fourth quarter, looking for a defensive pass interference call in the end zone on a pass by Alabama quarterback Keelon Russell intended for receiver Rico Scott.
“I mean, we can’t put the game in that situation where the officials come into play,” DeBoer said. “And so, we just got to control the thing we can control.”
“For us, it’s got to be, ‘Get back to work.’ The season doesn’t slow up for us. You find out the character of our football team. I believe I know what that looks like, but that will be certainly what we need to have happened in our response coming next week.”
Alabama (5-1) will face No. 15 Tennessee on the road next week.
“My feeling is that we’ll get back to work,” DeBoer said. “That’s what was said down there [in the locker room], and that’s what was talked about so they can make sure they don’t have the feelings that they have down in the locker room right now.”
