Alabama football and the SEC have been in contact about the Ryan Williams touchdown that was erased against Oklahoma because of a penalty.

“There has been communication,” Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer said Monday. “Nothing you can really do now. The game is over. You’ve just got to be comfortable with the communication you have. That’s been the case with the SEC. You just move on. We’re focused on the Iron Bowl.”

Williams leaped to grab a pass on fourth down with 14:07 left this past Saturday in Norman, Oklahoma. It would have brought Alabama within two scores of the Sooners. But officials ruled illegal touching on the play by Williams.

“They said it was an illegal touching, so someone would have had to have been covered up,” DeBoer said postgame on what the officials told him. “You know, ineligible.”

Being covered up has to do with alignment pre-snap and how many players are on the line of scrimmage. If you are on the line of scrimmage as a receiver, you can’t have a receiver closer to the sideline (outside of you) who is also on the line of scrimmage for you to still be an eligible receiver. Williams, however, was the farthest receiver on the line of scrimmage, so he should have still been eligible.

ABC/ESPN rules analyst Bill LeMonnier disagreed with the call the officials made.

“I personally don’t see the cover-up there,” LeMonnier said on the broadcast. “I’ve got two (receivers) in the backfield to the right and one guy up on the line of scrimmage.”

Still, it’s a loss of downs. And because the play was on fourth down, it resulted in Oklahoma taking over on downs.

The touchdown might not have made a difference in the outcome, but it would have helped. Because it wasn’t counted, Alabama went without a touchdown in a game for the first time since 2011.

Next up, Alabama (8-3, 4-3 SEC) will face Auburn on Saturday (2:30 p.m., ABC) at Bryant-Denny Stadium in the Iron Bowl.

Nick Kelly is an Alabama beat writer for AL.com and the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X and Instagram.