CFP SEMIFINAL AT THE ROSE BOWL GAME PRESENTED BY CAPITAL ONE: ALABAMA VS NOTRE DAME

December 28, 2020

DJ Dale

Alabama Crimson Tide

THE MODERATOR: We'll start with DJ Dale.

Q. Dylan just mentioned about how living through this sort of COVID season with all the restrictions and the protocols got a little stressful. Did you find this to be stressful, especially maybe the testing part? Did you find yourself thinking like, all right, is this the day, like are we clean today?

DJ DALE: Yeah, it was stressful at times. But everyone knew, like, this was some of the things we had to do in order to have a successful season. But at times, like, you didn't want to get up and do it, having to get up at 7:00 in the morning getting tested over and over again. You can kind of get frustrated, but we all bought in because we knew that's what we had to do.

Q. How much motivation does this defense have after the Florida game? Florida getting some big numbers. But also seems like a lot of -- several of the defenses in these playoffs get overlooked because the offenses are so good. How motivated are you to kind of make that stand yourself?

DJ DALE: We're very motivated. From what we put on film last week we aren't feeling great about it. So this week everybody is locked in and focusing on the little things that we have to do better. But, yeah, that's about it.

Q. What's been the difference in the pass rush the last three or four games? I know sometimes the difference in the sacks. Nick Saban talks about affecting the quarterback -- he didn't talk about sacks very much. But you guys have gotten a lot of sacks the last four games. Is that the result of the maturation of the players, the development of the players?

DJ DALE: For the most part it's executing the calls that Coach puts us in and everybody rushing together and doing their job. And we're getting the results we want.

Q. Given the chance (indiscernible) few weeks and months to look back on what happened against Ole Miss, how much was that a turning point in that season? What did you learn in that moment? And how did that apply itself the rest of the year?

DJ DALE: We learned that that whole week that we wasn't focused, we wasn't locked in and we didn't have a great week of practice. So that played a big role in what happened during that game. So from that point we focused and locked in at practice and everyone just came together. And we didn't want to repeat that in any other game.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.