Nick Saban reaffirms development as key to building depth on lines

One of the keys to having a strong football team is to be strong and deep in the trenches. Alabama head coach Nick Saban knows this and has emphasized the value of building line depth on both sides of the ball through player development.

Now, Saban has reaffirmed that belief that development is the key to building depth in the trenches.

“Guys have to focus, they have to get reps, they’ve got to learn from their mistakes,” Nick Saban said. “It’s maturity and the only way those players are going to get it is, how many times can we do it over, and over, and over, and over?”

Saban emphasized that the only way to get players ready to be where they’re going to need to be is to practice as much as possible. This goes for the lines and every other position where depth becomes a concern.

“It’s not practicing until you get it right, it’s practicing so much you can’t get it wrong. That’s how you develop confidence in things in terms of the habits that you develop and the things that you need to do to be able to play to the best of your ability, and that’s what we have to do,” Saban said.

“I’ve talked about this before. When you lose guys on your team, then the younger guys get cast into positions maybe they wouldn’t have been in if those guys didn’t leave your team. The depth of your squad gets affected to some degree by some of those things. So, it’s important that we do a great job of developing the young players and getting them into positions where they can be players who can go in and play with confidence and give us a chance to be successful even if they have to play.”

Nick Saban says the inside linebackers are a work in progress

This year, Alabama needs to replace some talent lost at linebacker. However, Nick Saban admitted that the team’s inside linebackers are still a work in progress.

“It’s a work in progress for some of the guys, but I’m also pleased at the way some guys are progressing and we just have to continue to work on that group as a whole to get more and more guys who can contribute in a positive way,” Saban said.

“I think that we need to continue to improve. I think we’ve got a couple guys that are playing really well. I think we need to get more guys to play well at that position.”