Nick Saban credits coaching staff, players for continued improvement

Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide have been answering early-season doubts with their impressive play as of late, most recently defeating No. 14 LSU in dominant fashion 42-28 over the weekend.

Major changes occurred all over the place for Alabama this offseason, highlighted by hiring new offensive and defensive coordinators and trying to find a new quarterback to replace a lineage of seven straight seasons with an NFL Draft pick under center.

There’s no question there was a bit of an adjustment period for the Crimson Tide to start the season given their changes, with head coach Nick Saban receiving high praise and many calling this season one of the best coaching jobs of his career. But when he was asked about his team’s growth this season, he gave all the recognition to others.

“I think the credit goes to the coaching staff and the players,” Saban said. “This group of guys have shown tremendous resiliency to keep working to improve. I think they trust the coaches.”

After making easy work of Middle Tennessee State in Week 1 of the season, the Crimson Tide fell to Texas 34-24 in Week 2, representing Alabama’s first double-digit loss in Tuscaloosa since 2007.

The Crimson Tide followed that with an uncharacteristic poor performance on the road versus Group of Five opponent USF, only defeating the Bulls 17-3 as they were fresh off of a 1-11 season.

Their early-season blunders came with a certain level of concern and doubt from Alabama fans and outsiders, but since that game, Alabama has won six straight games versus SEC opponents. The Crimson Tide remain undefeated in conference play and sit atop the SEC West division standings, showing improvement every single week and looking more and more like their dominant teams of the past thanks to the buy in from their players.

“They respect what we’re trying to do to help them be better players and it’s resulted in a team that has consistently improved throughout the year and we just gotta try to keep trying to do that,” Saban said. “We got a lot of guys nicked up today, but hopefully it’ll be an opportunity for somebody else to step up.”

Alabama is peaking at the right time, increasing their scoring and point total concessively in their last three games and beating their last two opponents by 14 points each, getting revenge of Tennessee and LSU following close losses to both teams a season ago.

Saban and the Crimson Tide will look to keep building on their momentum and finish the season strong with three regular season games remaining, as they face Kentucky this Saturday at noon ET in a game airing on ESPN.