Nick Saban hammers Alabama effort, fumbles time management question

Nick Saban and Alabama are facing their largest deficit in 23 games, and the Crimson Tide head coach looked rattled when talking to CBS Sports reporter Jamie Erdhal headed into the half.

Texas A&M is 0-2 in SEC play, but the Aggies hold a 24-10 lead at the half. Alabama quarterback Bryce Young threw an interception inside the red zone, and the Aggies offense is having their way.

“We’re not playing very well,” Saban said. “We’re not tackling very well. We’re not staying in our gaps. They’re doing a good job of blocking us. We haven’t gotten off the field on third down. So we got to play a lot better. We got to do a lot better. No doubt.”

Saban also was asked about his time management late in the first half. Alabama had possession near the end of the half, but the Crimson Tide did not call a timeout. Instead, they struggled to execute and gave Texas A&M the ball back with over a minute to play. The Crimson Tide then stopped the Aggies on the next few plays, but Saban failed to take a timeout and get the ball back in the final seconds of the first half.

“Well what about it? If they had got the ball back, we had all the timeouts,” he said, struggling to answer the question. “If we had started calling them when it had got less than a minute. But we didn’t even make it, we didn’t need the time that we had. So you don’t call timeouts until there’s less than a minute. We had three timeouts. So we were going good.

“We just got a penalty on fourth down, turned the ball over on the two-yard line, turned it over again, lots of penalties. All these things contribute to not doing well.”

Alabama streaks broken by Texas A&M

Coming into the game against the Aggies on Saturday, Alabama had led their opponents for 59 straight quarters. Their streak was the longest since 1950 for any FBS team. Since the 2020 season only two teams had a lead against Alabama at all, with Georgia and Ole Miss accomplishing the feat on Oct. 17 and Oct. 10 of 2020.

The last time Alabama trailed in a football game was the third quarter against Georgia last year, where the Crimson Tide would regain the lead and win 41-24.

The Aggies scored a field goal to take the lead on their first drive of the game, and scored two touchdowns to end the first quarter with a 17-7 lead.

The ten point deficit is also notable for being the largest losing margin that Alabama has faced since 2019 against LSU. The Crimson Tide had not been down to their opponent by ten points in 23 consecutive games.