Alabama Crimson Tide College Football Postgame Quote, 01/06/2019

Well, obviously we’re all very, very disappointed, but I’d like to say that I’m very, very proud of what our team was able to accomplish this year, to win 14 games, win the SEC, win the Orange Bowl, have an opportunity to play for the National Championship, really proud of our players, really proud of our team. And I don’t think that one game necessarily defines who you are, and that’s certainly what I’d like for our players to know. I think you learn a lot from experiences like this. We certainly didn’t play very well tonight, and we had some issues. We couldn’t get off the field on third down, we gave up a couple big time explosive plays on third down, third down and 13, third down and 9. We had plenty of opportunities to score offensively, have the ball at the 1-yard line, get a penalty, end up kicking a field goal, have it down there a couple more times, do a fake field goal and go for it on fourth down and don’t make it, get stopped on the goal line and 1-yard line another time.

Got to congratulate Clemson. They did a very, very good job. Their quarterback is really good, their skill players are really good. We actually stopped the run pretty well and created enough third-down situations, we just couldn’t get off the field on third down, couldn’t capitalize on our opportunities that we had on offense.

But the seniors on this team have done a fantastic job of representing the University of Alabama. I think they’ve won 50-some games or whatever since they’ve been here, and they’ve been a class group and provided a lot of leadership and a lot of good examples for the young players on our team, and we certainly appreciate them and wish them well in their future.