Nick Saban addresses turnovers, importance of winning that battle

Alabama may have won all of their games so far this season, but they’ve losing drastically in the turnover margin department. The Crimson Tide have lost the turnover battle in all of their game except two this season, tying Arkansas and Texas in their matchups, and head coach Nick Saban on the team’s struggles in that department.

“Well we’ve been emphasizing it like crazy and this is the first time in a long time we’ve had a negative turnover ratio at this point in the season,” Saban said. “We don’t get enough turnovers on defense and we’ve given the ball up more than we have historically and both of those things need to improve because it is very very challenging.”

The Crimson Tide are coming off of their worst performance of the season in the turnover department, giving the ball away to Texas A&M four times last game and only taking it away from them once, which clearly made the game a lot more challenging for them seeing that the Aggies had a chance to win the game on their two-yard line on the final play of the game.

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“I’ve said many times before, one of the most compelling stats relative to winning and losing is turnover margin and every week we show the players okay if you’re plus-one, plus-two, plus-three all over the country what was the record, if you’re minus-one, minus-two, minus-three all over the country what was the record, and it’s pretty compelling,” Saban said.

Alabama currently sits at a minus-six turnover margin, one of the worst in the nation, yet has still found a way to win all of their games so far this season. Saban has stressed to his team on the importance of taking care of and taking away the football, they simply just have to execute.

“And the players understand that and they understand the value of turning the ball over relative to the other team, what the average turnover in a season allows you to score and when you get a turnover, that benefits you in scoring,” Saban said. “So these are very important factors that have been emphasized and we just need to do a better job.”

The Tide’s turnover woes haven’t cost them yet, but might want to get them solved soon, as they take on back-to-back ranked, conference opponents in No. 6 Tennessee and No. 16 Mississippi State, two squads that do not struggle to score and surely capitalize when given the ball.