Nick Saban on Kool-Aid McKinstry muffed punt: 'You can't blame him'

Alabama jumped out to a 21-0 lead on Kentucky in the first seven minutes of the game on Saturday and might have been able to stretch the lead out even further if not for a special teams miscue by punt returner Kool-Aid McKinstry.

McKinstry muffed a punt and Kentucky recovered, taking advantage of the short field to score its first touchdown of the game.

But coach Nick Saban doesn’t blame McKinstry for the miscue, he said.

“I mean, I love the guy. He’s a great returner,” Saban said. “Look, the gunner on that side ran into him when he missed the punt. That’s the gunner’s responsibility. You can’t look up and catch a ball and worry about somebody that’s running down the field blocking for you running into you. He tried to fair-catch the ball.”

The extra traffic caused enough confusion that the punt went through the breadbasket of McKinstry as he was trying to make it over on the sideline.

Saban wasn’t thinking for an instant about lifting McKinstry as the punt returner.

“I have every confidence in the world (in him),” Saban said. “He’s been a player for us. I just think the players around him have to do a little bit better job, because when you get these radical punts I’m going to call them, you don’t get like easy balls to field. You’ve got to cover a lot of ground to catch it and that launch point of where he’s catching it changes for the people that are blocking for him.”

The miscue didn’t seem to bother Kool-Aid McKinstry, who went on to make a nice return to set up the Crimson Tide in excellent field position. He had a 27-yard return that gave Alabama the ball in Kentucky territory.

And with no issues from his head coach on the muffed punt, McKinstry can continue on sure of his role.

“I’m not making excuses for anybody, but you can’t blame him for that one in my opinion,” Saban said. “I think that he did a great job and it was good to see us get one off to a big play.”