Nick Saban acknowledges Alabama's early season struggles are 'a test of your humility'

It’s been almost eight years since Alabama fell out of the Top 10 of the AP Top 25, but that’s where the Crimson Tide find themselves heading into a Week 4 matchup with Ole Miss. Alabama is 2-1, but the 17-3 victory over USF last week had some fans hovering their finger over the panic button.

Still, Nick Saban is keeping things in perspective.

“The standard here doesn’t change, but this is also a test of your humility,” Saban told ESPN’s Chris Low. “You say, ‘Hey, I don’t care what anybody says. I know what the expectations are.’ But, I mean, how many people have been able to go 16 years and not have a bump in the road?”

Alabama started off the year with a big victory over Middle Tennessee State, but followed that up with a double-digit loss to Texas on home turf. That made the stakes even higher for the trip to USF, and the offense struggled.

Tyler Buchner got the start at quarterback, but was benched after a rough first half and Ty Simpson finished out the game. However, Saban still ended up going back to Jalen Milroe afterward, naming him the starting quarterback earlier this week.

But with the quarterback questions still looming, Saban sees plenty of talent on this Alabama team and said the Tide are better than last week. It’s now time for SEC play, where he’ll learn if his group can beat teams like the one it will face this week.

“We’ll respond. We’ve got a better team than the way we played last week,” Saban said. “I don’t know if we’ve got a good enough team to beat Ole Miss or anybody else we play, but we’ve got a better team than we played last week. Texas has a damn good team, probably one of the best five teams in the country and we were ahead of them in the fourth quarter.

“I like this team. I like this group. They’ve worked hard. They’ve got a good attitude about things. We just got to execute better and pay better attention to detail, and we’ve got some areas on our team that need to play better.”

The sense is people probably don’t feel bad for Alabama after the up-and-down start to the season. Saban noted he also doesn’t feel sorry for his team, and his players should have the same mindset.

“And they shouldn’t be, because I can assure you we’re not feeling sorry for ourselves,” Saban said of his players.