Nick Saban details what Alabama did wrong in loss vs Tennessee

After Alabama’s 52-49 loss to the Tennessee Volunteers, head coach Nick Saban opened his press conference with the laundry list of issues that led to the final result.

“I’ll kind of tell you what I told the team,” Saban said after the loss, “very disappointing loss, we didn’t answer the bell today. Obviously, there’s a lot of work to be done. Way too many penalties did too many things to help them, gave up explosive plays, had a major error on special teams that was totally unnecessary that led to a score on their part.

“We didn’t execute well enough. Have to give our players credit for fighting back and having an opportunity to win at the end. Wish we could have done things a little different in the end. Play a little better, we played way too soft to let them go down the field 50 yards to get in field goal range.”

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The Alabama secondary allowed one player, Jalin Hyatt, to score a program-record five touchdowns on six receptions. Saban shared how he felt the Vols exploited some key mismatches between the Tennessee receivers and the Tide safeties.

“I don’t think the no-huddle offense was the issue for us,” Saban told reporters. “I think it was covering their receivers and allowing way too many big plays. They created a lot of mismatches. We were trying to play nickel and they were trying to get their best receivers on the safeties.”

Alabama ultimately finished with more total yards than Tennessee (569 to 567 yards). However, Saban’s squad gave up 130 yards on 17 penalties. The penalty total was the most ever for a Crimson Tide team.

Saban lays out silver lining

Despite the Tide’s disappointment at losing to the Vols for the first time in 15 years, Nick Saban also shared an uplifting message. He reminded the team that the single loss hasn’t derailed their overall goals for the season.

“I also told the players, we can accomplish every goal that we had at the beginning of the season,” Saban said. “There’s no room for error in the West. If we win out the West, we can win the West and still have a chance to go to the SEC championship game. But I think the key to the drill is, you have to learn from these experiences, learn from the mistakes that you made.”

According to ESPN, more than half (20) of the 32 teams that have made the CFP since 2014 have had a loss on their record. That includes the 2021 Crimson Tide, which lost to Texas A&M in the regular season.