Nick Saban stresses importance of focus, communication for Alabama in fall camp

Having now had a few practices to evaluate Alabama in fall camp, Nick Saban entered his press conference Wednesday with a message. As he stepped to the podium, the coach harped on the importance of players staying focused and not making mistakes as they prepare to kick off the season in a few weeks.

Saban particularly emphasized playing the entire game that way and not allowing fatigue or adversity down the stretch to affect execution. He brought up the Crimson Tide’s only two losses of the season last year to LSU and Tennessee as examples of times Alabama fell apart late.

“The No. 1 thing we need to focus on is we have to increase the level of attention to detail,” he said. “Focus on every play. We can play and not have penalties and missed assignments. Communication goes with that. I don’t care whether you’re playing the offensive line making a line call or in the secondary and you make a coverage call. So everybody’s on the same page. You can anticipate things. You can play better and you can play faster. I think sometimes when things get a little bit difficult, we lose our focus a little bit.

“One of the interesting things that someone brought to my attention, the two longest games that we had last year, almost four hours long (against) Tennessee and LSU, we made mistakes at the end of the game, which were very costly. So the ability to sustain this level of concentration and focus, no matter what you call it, is something that we really, really need to do and continue to work on so that we have a chance to be more consistent as a team and don’t make plays that are drive-killers or give up explosive plays on defense or help the other team with penalties.”

In the 52-49 loss to the Volunteers, Alabama’s first since 2006, the Crimson Tide committed a total of 17 penalties. They also missed a potential go-ahead field goal on their final drive of the game with 15 seconds to go, then allowed Tennessee to reel off a couple of big plays to put itself in field goal position to win the game.

Similarly against LSU, Alabama allowed the Tigers to take a late lead before the Crimson Tide kicked a field goal to force overtime. Then it gave up a 25-yard touchdown run to Jayden Daniels on LSU’s first play and failed to stop the game-winning two-point conversion.

Those are the kinds of lapses in play that Saban hopes to avoid in 2023. He’s seen signs of progress, but knows the team has to continue to improve.

“I like the attitude that the team has,” he said. “I like the togetherness. I like the sense of commitment to the principles and values that everybody seems to be buying into. But that’s something that we need to work on and every guy has got to do a good job of working on that.”

Wednesday was Alabama’s first day in pads and also only the second time during fall camp it was able to practice outside for the full day. That gave the Crimson Tide players a perfect example to work on what Saban preached as they had to push through the heat.

“It’s a great opportunity for us to be able to stay focused in these kind of positions, especially toward the end of practice when guys are getting tired,” the coach said. “Saturday’s scrimmage will be no different. We want to evaluate whether guys can block, tackle, execute what they’re supposed to do. Not so much try to game plan and experiment with things. Just see how guys can play winning football at whatever position. That’s something I think is really important.”

Alabama will kick off the season in a little more than three weeks on Sept. 2 against Middle Tennessee.