Damien Harris didn’t hold back Sunday when criticizing Alabama safety Malachi Moore for his behavior at the end of the Tide’s 40-35 upset loss to Vanderbilt in Nashville.
Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer didn’t escape the verbal assault either..
Harris, who now serves as an analyst for CBS Sports HQ, made the comments to The Athletic’s podcast Until Saturday, calling out the Tide’s captain for making the game about him.
“Let me pick up a ridiculous 15-yard penalty for literally no apparent reason,” Harris said on The Athletic’s podcast Until Saturday. And you call yourself a two-time captain?
Moore was flagged for kicking the football - after he threw his mouthpiece - out of frustration when the Commodores had the game in hand and were set to kneel it out.
“I can tell y’all what would have happened in the days that I was there,” Harris, an analyst for CBS Sports HQ, said. “We would have tried to rip the ‘C’ off his jersey. We would’ve lit him up. From every coach, every player, Reuben Foster, Minkah Fitzpatrick, Daron Payne, Jalen Hurts, Jerry Jeudy. Everybody would have been on this dude’s head, like, ‘We don’t do that.’
“What’s up with that? Like, if we go out there and we get beat, we’re going to handle all of our issues internally. But no guy is bigger and above this program, so you don’t get to act like that.”
Harris wasn’t done. He then had something to say about Alabama’s first-year coach.
“I’m gonna tell y’all exactly why he feels like he can act like that,” Harris said. “You go and look at what Kalen DeBoer said in his postgame press conference about Malachi Moore. ‘Oh, well he’s one of our guys, and he’s one of our leaders. Yeah, we expect him to use this and only bring positivity for the rest of the season.’
“Man, damn that! What’s up with that? Nick Saban would have said that? No! That’s bull(s-word). That don’t help you win games. That does not help you control the talent and the level of guys that you’ve never coached before, guys that you’ve never had experience with, at a program that you don’t know what it takes to win these kinds of games.
“You just come in here and try to be everybody’s buddy-buddy. Try to be everybody’s friend. Well what does that get you? That gets you beat against Vandy on the road.”
Harris does haven’t an issue being critical. He has earned the right, he said.
“I was somebody that did it. I was somebody that lived it. Two natty’s. Three SEC championships. I lived it. I lived by the code. I played the game the right way. Listen, I had somebody there in Nick Saban who put me in a position to be accountable for my performance, good or bad. To handle myself with respect and with class, and we’re just not seeing that.
