Nick Saban praises Emil Ekiyor while criticizing offensive line play as whole

Football, at its heart, is a simple sport. It’s made complex by scheme, play design, and technique. However, at its most basic, the team who blocks and tackles better will usually win. Nick Saban, one of the game’s greatest coaches knows that all too well. It’s why you need great offensive linemen like Emil Ekiyor.

During a press conference, Nick Saban was asked about Emil Ekiyor’s time at Alabama. In particular, he was asked about how he’s improved at diagnosing defenses and understands what they’re doing.

“Well, you know, when you play offensive line, you basically look at the font,” Nick Saban explained. “You make a line call, alright, the center makes a line call. Then, you have a technique that you have to play most of the time in combination with somebody else and I think he certainly understands all those things.”

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Nick Saban also used this as an opportunity to criticize the team’s offensive line play as a whole.

“But I think as an entire group, as an offensive line, we need to do all those things better. We need to play better together, we need to play fundamentally better–just like every other position that I’m talking about, and if we want to have success, individually or collectively, We need better consistency,” Nick Saban said.

Nick Saban used Jase McClellan’s 81-yard run as an example. He pointed out that the entire right side of the offensive line did their jobs. That effective blocking, everyone doing the right thing in unison, created a successful play.

“Just got to do more of those things on a more consistent basis.”

Nick Saban explained doing your job

A mixture of issues forced Alabama to come from behind to beat Texas. However, there is a difference between mental errors and not doing your job, as Nick Saban explained.

“It’s not just mental errors. Mental errors are all correctable. It’s also focusing on the fundamental way that you need to do your job. Whether it’s hand placement when you’re blocking somebody, whether it’s hand placement as a defensive lineman when you’re striking a blocker, all those things help you have a chance to be successful on that particular play. Footwork, covering somebody, how you run routes, how you release, how you come out of the route at the top of the route,” Nick Saban said.

“All those things, when you say ‘play smart,’ that means you’ve got to do it correctly. … So, that’s not a mental error, right? That’s just a lack of fundamental execution and sort of buying into the fact that if I do this right, that’s going to give me the best chance to be successful. That’s just something that I thought we did fairly well in the first game, but we did not do nearly as well last week on the road. So, that’s something that we’ve got to develop consistency in.”