Nick Saban breaks down final defensive play, makes tongue in cheek comment on late penalty

Alabama narrowly edged out Texas A&M in Tuscaloosa on Saturday night, needing a stop on the very final play of the game in order to seal the victory. The Tide held their ground and won by the skin of their teeth, with a terrific play by their defense to keep Jimbo Fisher’s squad from pulling the ultimate upset for a second straight season.

After the game, Nick Saban broke down that final play near the goal line. For all you X’s and O’s nerds, this is the good stuff from the best in the game breaking down exactly what the plan was on the play of the game:

“Well, you know, when they scored a touchdown earlier, we were playing them inside-out, trapping the flat thing, thinking that they would some run some kind of pick. As soon as they put four wideouts in the game, we thought they would be similar. So we changed the leverage, you know, on the guys and they worked for us. So, Terrion [Arnold] made a good play and we had the guys covered on the other side pretty well too.”

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There you have it, the mindset behind the defensive play-call to win the game from Nick Saban himself. He also made a rather passive-aggressive comment on the pass interference call that put the Aggies in such good position to go for the win.

“I didn’t get much of a view on the pass interference butI guess it was a good call I wouldn’t say anything other than that,” said Saban.

Jimbo Fisher also addressed his team’s call on that final play. He defended it, but admitted that Alabama just played it perfectly.

“We had three looks. We were one-on-one. Right in the corner, on a one-on-one route. We had three options on the front side. He read it. Same play we had scored on earlier. We hit Moose on. They changed the coverage, went right back and made the perfect read where we were going to. They played it off the first time.

“We knew if they did it, we had a one-on-one backside and if they didn’t, the other way we had our two looks on the front side, which we wanted.”

So Fisher doesn’t seem to regretful over the play-call, but rather the execution of it. And also: the Crimson Tide simply had it covered, so credit to them.