Nick Saban goes in-depth on Bryce Young, coachability of Alabama team

It’s no surprise that Alabama has put together another strong football season, but the Crimson Tide certainly had to overcome some adversity to get to where they are now. Nick Saban’s squad suffered a regular-season loss to Texas A&M and then had to compete at a high level against Georgia in order to make the College Football Playoff – and they did that, dominating against the Bulldogs to spoil their perfect season and earn the No. 1 ranking in the playoff.

Although there were times during the regular season when Alabama didn’t play its best, it has taken care of business – and a big reason for that is because of the way quarterback Bryce Young has performed throughout the campaign.

During Sunday’s media availability for Saban and Cincinnati head coach Luke Fickell prior to the Alabama-Cincinnati matchup in the Cotton Bowl semifinal on Dec. 31, Saban spoke highly of the way Young has played this year.

“Bryce has played well for us all year long,” Saban said. “I think he’s made some incredible plays down the stretch here in our last couple games that certainly enhanced our chances of being successful in the game. I do think in this last game the players around him played a lot better, which gave him a much better opportunity.”

Alabama has improved throughout the season

Coming into the 2021 season, Alabama head coach Nick Saban knew he had a young team. There were certainly some growing pains throughout the regular season, but the Crimson Tide has put everything together and now looks to win another College Football Playoff national championship.

“This team was a young team when we started out this season,” Saban said. “We’ve had a lot of adversity to overcome. I think they’ve shown tremendous resiliency, and I think that in this last game we seemed to play to the standard we wanted to play to against a very good team. Now it’s going to be everybody’s choice as to whether we can maintain that and be consistent with that moving forward as we play in the playoffs – and it doesn’t get any easier … it gets a lot more difficult.

“Any of the four teams in the playoffs are going to be tremendous challenges.”

No. 1 Alabama and No. 4 Cincinnati are scheduled to kickoff at 3:30 p.m. Dec. 31 in the Cotton Bowl at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.