Nick Saban on close win over Texas: 'This was like playing an SEC game on the road'

It wasn’t always pretty, but Alabama walked away from its game against Texas with a victory on Saturday. But Nick Saban said this won’t be the last time his team plays in an environment like the one at DKR Texas Memorial Stadium.

Saturday marked the first time Alabama and Texas played since the 2009 national championship. But the two teams will see plenty of each other in a couple years when Texas leaves the Big 12 for the SEC.

In fact, Saban said the Longhorns — and their fans — are SEC-caliber already.

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“This is like playing an SEC game on the road,” Saban said. “This kind of atmosphere, this kind of team that we’re playing. That was a lot better team than people give them credit for. And they’re going to be in the SEC. If they were in the SEC right now, they’re probably in the top half of the league. This was a real test for us.”

The Crimson Tide won the game 20-19 thanks to some late heroics from reigning Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young, who led an impressive game-winning drive to set up Will Reichard’s go-ahead field goal.

But Alabama didn’t play to Saban’s standard for most of the day, especially since the Crimson Tide racked up more penalties than any other game during Saban’s tenure. However, he acknowledged his players’ ability to battle back to win the game.

Still, there are areas to work on in practice before the Week 3 game against Louisiana-Monroe.

“We didn’t play as well as we’d like to play from beginning to end,” Saban said. “But in the end, when we had to make plays, the players did a great job of making the plays that they needed to make. The perseverance, resiliency, ability to overcome adversity, got to give them an A for all that. But not so good with some of the other execution that we had earlier in the game and we’ve got to get them fixed, and I think it’s all things that we can get fixed.”