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CHICK-FIL-A KICKOFF GAME

August 31, 2019

David Cutcliffe

Atlanta, Georgia

Alabama - 42, Duke - 3

DAVID CUTCLIFFE: Games like this kind of -- you go one of two ways: They set you back or you get better from them. I know in my heart of hearts that our team will get better from this.

Alabama is not good, they're outstanding. I might say they have a great offense without a doubt. When we needed to play at our best at times, we hung in there and could. But our defense just wore out with the offense not being successful.

And then the story in the second half became had a big penalty and an ejection on defense led to the first score. Then we turn around and we have a big penalty, a shot block penalty on offense and then we get a resulting turnover, another score.

You can't turn the ball over, and you can't get big penalties. In the first half, although we weren't very productive offensively, we were disciplined. We had two penalties the entire first half. And that's how we knew we would have to play. Alabama, as I said, is a great football team.

But we learned a lot about ourselves. We'll figure this out offensively. We'll tackle better. You know, you don't tackle a lot anymore all season or even in camp. When you play a team like this, it shows. A lot to work on.

I saw a lot of good things about our football team we'll build on, so we'll move forward quickly obviously from this, and hats off to Coach Saban and the entire staff and the Alabama football team. They are outstanding.

Q. You had talked leading up to the game about how impressed you were with Tua. Now that you've seen him firsthand, what do you think of him?
DAVID CUTCLIFFE: Well, he is incredible. I'm assuming everybody heard what I'm answering. He's accurate. He's poised. His release is so compact and supple and quick. He can throw on the run. One of the things early in the game was them avoiding sacks. Had we had a few of those sacks happen, we could have put them behind the chains.

But I said this -- I've studied him now. I had never studied him until this summer. I think he's going to be a great quarterback this year, and he will play in the National Football League a long time. He's going to be a great player.

Q. (Indiscernible) will you do anything different, commit more people to the run, or just better control the offensive line?
DAVID CUTCLIFFE: No, I don't know that you could say we controlled that offensive line, but we had a good front defensively and we had some people roll in there, and I thought we defeated some blocks. I thought our linebackers were really good, played well. Where they hurt us was when the back got outside of us. We didn't tackle well in the secondary, but when the ball was contained within the line of scrimmage, we felt like we would match up good with them.

I'm anxious to see the tape, see where we can grow even more defensively.

Q. I know your offense had a couple of struggles. Were those struggles (indiscernible)?
DAVID CUTCLIFFE: During the scrimmages are you asking? I don't know if it was the same. I mean, defensively Alabama caused a lot of people's struggles. We weren't consistent with anything, and I don't think -- and this is on me, that we did a good enough job of using our weapons. You have to be balanced against them. When we got to that right there in the two-minute drill and we got a little bit more to it at times in the second half -- I'm excited about what we can be offensively. Again, we've got two ways to go from this game. I'm expecting us to respond well.

Q. Obviously Alabama has some youth (indiscernible)?
DAVID CUTCLIFFE: I thought their linebackers, those young linebackers played exceptionally well. They're big, strong, really good players. I know Moses is one of the best linebackers I've seen, period. I think he's a great player. I hate it for him. I truly hate it that he's had that type of injury to miss a season. But their front played really well. We knew they would.

When you lose a couple players like they lost, and when you lose Williams, when you can absorb that and come out and look like they looked, that's a pretty good sign that recruiting is going well.

Q. Early in the first quarter you guys decide to go for it, you had a shot at a field goal (indiscernible)?
DAVID CUTCLIFFE: I look at any opponent, I look at their offense and I didn't think we could win the game taking field goals. We weren't trying to have a moral victory, we were trying to find a way to win the game. There are ranges that I'm going to go for and we should have gone for there and we should have made it, and we're going to challenge our team that when we make those decisions, there shouldn't be a doubt, and that's the way we have to approach it.

Q. (Indiscernible.)
DAVID CUTCLIFFE: We brought all of our scholarship freshmen, whether they were going to play or not, to experience this atmosphere. We just signed a really outstanding class ourselves. I think our players will have a great memory, regardless of the outcome, but I think more importantly maybe a hunger to put yourselves in these games, these atmospheres. I can't say enough for Gary Stokan and his people. When you get in these types of games, and I've coached them in the past, it can go either way how they're run. The city of Atlanta, their sponsorship, but Gary and his staff, wow, what a great job. So I know our players have seen it done right. Should make you a little hungrier is what it should do. That's a good question, by the way.

Q. Middle of the first quarter you went to (indiscernible) put Alabama off guard. What inspired you to put that in, and how do you think (indiscernible)?
DAVID CUTCLIFFE: Well, I don't know if it threw them off, but we were trying to find ways to run the ball better. I was a little disappointed that we didn't get a couple of things done more clearly with it. I thought it was really ready, but it's very difficult to scrimmage that against your own defense. So a little bit of our first look at it, and something that we're going to continue to tinker with because we've got some really good backs, and we're going to try to find a way to run the ball better.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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