‘That really pisses us off’ – Ty Simpson blasts the media for creating a specific narrative about Alabama under Kalen DeBoer
Ty Simpson doesn’t want to hear about Alabama’s toughness.
The Alabama Crimson Tide showed something that few believed they had in them against the Oklahoma Sooners. No one questioned Alabama’s ability to dig itself out of a hole. In fact, the passing attack and Kalen DeBoer’s offense are built just for that.
But people questioned the fight, the toughness, and the will to win when just a couple of weeks prior, Alabama looked lifeless against the Georgia Bulldogs in the SEC Championship. Then came the best two and a half quarters Alabama had all season, and suddenly, the Crimson Tide punched its ticket to the Rose Bowl. That hasn’t stopped people from saying Alabama isn’t tough, however, and Ty Simpson has had enough of it.
Ty Simpson says Alabama is using “toughness” stereotype as bulletin board material
“One, playing the SEC is tough anyway. Playing at Alabama is tough. The stuff that we have to go through on a daily basis, the 4th Quarter, summer workouts, running stadiums, stuff that people don’t do … so that really frustrates us,” said Simpson via the Closed on Sunday’s pod on YouTube.
“And two, the schedule we go through. Playing at Florida State. We know what we did there, but that was a hostile environment and we learned from that. Going to Athens, playing a ranked Vandy team, Missouri, Tennessee, SC, Oklahoma twice, SECCG … things that build up over time that most teams can’t do in two years. We’re doing it in a season … That really pisses us off. It’s bulletin board material for us, honestly.”
The Narrative about Kalen DeBoer’s Crimson Tide team stems from two things. Last year, it was a lack of discipline that you saw with players throwing temper tantrums or having costly mental mistakes.
To the credit of DeBoer, those have largely diminished, if not been eliminated, in 2025. The team is much more buttoned up in 2025. However, the toughness stereotype in 2025 stems from the run game. Alabama has struggled to run the ball all season, and many believe that running the ball and stopping the run come down to being physically tough.
The context missing from that argument is that Alabama was running the ball the best it had all season before Jam Miller went down with an injury in the Iron Bowl. In terms of stopping the run, Alabama stoned an Oklahoma offense that lives and dies off run-pass options by making the Sooners reliant on John Mateer’s arm.
Beyond all of that, though, the Tide showed how mentally tough and focused they were when they blocked out all of the Kalen DeBoer noise and focused on making the comeback of the year against Oklahoma.
We’ll see how tough Alabama is against Indiana in just a few days.
Alabama Crimson Tide News
Indiana HC Curt Cignetti changes his tune a bit when talking about Kalen DeBoer and his matchup with the Alabama Crimson Tide
The normally brash head coach of the Hoosiers was a little more complimentary when it came to Alabama.
