'We preach emotional maturity:' Kalen DeBoer says he 'would have never expected' Dijon Lee's late personal foul in loss to Georgia

Would Alabama have had a chance to tie Georgia or even get the win without Dijon Lee’s late personal foul penalty?

The sophomore cornerback was called for a personal foul late in the No. 6 Crimson Tide’s 20-17 loss to No. 2 Georgia on Saturday night. After Alabama stopped Georgia on second down to set up a third-and-2 just after the 2-minute warning, Lee’s last smack of Georgia wide receiver Craig Dandridge at the end of the play gave the Bulldogs a free first down and allowed them to simply kneel out the clock.

When Lee came to the sidelines, Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer was furious. We’ll let you lip read what DeBoer was saying to Lee. It might have been about costing Alabama a chance at a comeback.

After the game, the first question of DeBoer’s news conference was about Lee’s penalty.

“We preach emotional maturity and I really feel strong that across the board we had that with our team and would have never expected that to happen,” DeBoer said. “You’ve got to give yourself a chance … You’re out there giving everything you’ve got, you’ve just got to give yourself a chance. Emotional maturity is what it comes down to and we’ve been pretty good at that going on the last two years and obviously, moment comes up like we had just now, we didn’t respond the right way.”

Of course, there’s no guarantee that Alabama would have gotten the ball back if Lee hadn’t been penalized. Bo Walker gained seven yards on first down before his one-yard gain on second down to set up that short third down. With just two yards to go — and the benefit of the 2-minute warning to think about the call — Georgia had plenty of play options to go for the first down itself.

Instead, the Bulldogs didn’t need to exercise any of them.