Nick Saban assesses Alabama's week of practice out of bye week

Since cruising past Mississippi State in Tuscaloosa, Alabama has had plenty of time to recover ahead of this week’s rivalry game vs. LSU. Now that the Crimson Tide players have a few practices under their belts, Nick Saban provided his assessment of how his team came out of the week off.

Saban sounded impressed with how his team is handling itself out of the bye. Now, his attention will turn to the play on the field Saturday when the Crimson Tide head to Baton Rouge for a primetime showdown against LSU.

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“It’s been very good,” Saban said of the week of practice. “The response of the players has been really good. We’ve practiced well all three days this week. We’ll see how we play, but we seem to be preparing the right way.”

Saban previously addressed what Alabama worked on during the bye week, and he said he wanted the players to take steps toward taking their season to the next level entering a tough stretch in the schedule.

“We had a good work week last week. Really tried to emphasize with the players, ‘What are you going to attach yourself to for the upcoming challenges for the rest of the season?’” Saban said. “Great time to do a little self-assessment of what we need to do to get a little more consistent execution, whether it’s individual players, systematically on offense, defense, special teams.”

Given the nature of the rivalry against LSU, Saban said the bye week was all about putting everything together against a team that’s on the rise. The Tigers went from falling to Florida State in their season opener to a top-10 team in the first College Football Playoff rankings Tuesday night.

“We really need to come together as a team vs. a good opponent,” Saban said. “That’s obviously going to be really important for this game versus LSU, who right now is probably playing as well as anybody in the country. They’re very well-coached. This game has always got significant implications. They’re always ranked, we’re always ranked, so it’s kind of a rivalry game that is always an important matchup.”