Post-Game Press Conference with Alabama Head Coach Thatfunk

[thatfunk]

 

Confetti rained down Crimson and White on the Alabama faithful who followed the Tide to Southern California for their matchup with Western Michigan Saturday night. In a matchup of Preseason #1 and the newly crowned Heisman Trophy winner, it was the team many had counted out after a Week 1 shutout loss that emerged victorious from what can only be described as a defensive battle. The Alabama defense was able to hold Theo Scribner to 286 passing yards, 1 TD, and 2 interceptions. In doing so, the defense led Alabama to their first SimFBA National Championship, and gave Alabama the first Championship win for a team from a Power 5 Conference.

 

After the post-game trophy presentation, and much deserved celebrations with his team and family, Head Coach thatfunk entered the media room ready to answer questions about Alabama's historic victory.

 

The floor is now open for questions:

[tsweezy]

First off: congratulations on the championship

 

next year you lose your QB and RB but return a ton of talent. What are your expectations? Running it back?

[thatfunk]

First off, I’d like to thank Connor and Chris for what they’ve given this team over the last few years. They’ve been fantastic leaders both on and off the field and they will be missed. As for next year, we’ll have to see what we have during spring and summer practice. Like you said, there’s a lot of talent returning but there will be a lot of new guys coming in who will be trying to fill some big shoes. The biggest question mark will be whether the guys who are here next year still have the drive to try to win it all again. It’s gonna my job to keep these guys from getting complacent and thinking we will win games just by showing up. We’re at the top now and everyone is going to give us their all to try to take us down.

[tsweezy]

Next question: when gameplanning what did you do to shut Scribner down? What a defensive performance that was

[thatfunk]

To start, yes I can’t say enough about how incredible to see our guys go out there and holding an historic offense to 7 points. After scouting their season we figured they’d stick to their game plan of giving the ball to Theo as much as possible, so we really just wanted to focus on the pass and put our guys in a position to make positive plays. We honestly didn’t change that much of what we usually do, we just trusted our guys to do their jobs. Marcus, Gio, and Stephen did a great job of making adjustments and getting guys lined up out there.

[kwheele]

Coach: Williams had a reduced role in the fourth quarter, what was the thought process behind that? Was there an undisclosed injury or did something else have a factor in that?

 

Thank you.

[thatfunk]

Thank you for that question, I know a number of people felt the same way. The blame for that falls on me. Chris was having a great game but I thought that if we were to have to go into overtime we would really want to rely on Chris to carry the load like he has all season. So I decided to give Cam a number of reps so Chris wasn’t too tired if we had to keep playing. Obviously that didn’t happen, and hindsight is 20/20 but, having talked to Chris, he’s just happy we won the game. He’s a fantastic player and person and I can’t wait to see him succeed at the next level.

[kwheele]

Thanks, Coach.

 

Your Alabama offense has been fairly consistent this season in scoring, what do you attribute the fall off with your squad in this game?