Everything Nick Saban said after Alabama's 26-20 win at Texas A&M

COLLEGE STATION, Texas – No. 11 Alabama defeated Texas A&M, 26-20, Saturday. After the Crimson Tide’s SEC West battle at Kyle Field, head coach Nick Saban addressed reporters. Below is everything Saban said after Alabama advanced to 5-1 (3-0 SEC) on the year.

“So what do we want to talk about first? The good news or the bad news? Because we’ve got a little bit of both. But I could never be more proud of a group of guys for the way they competed in the game, the way we competed in the second half. But the message going into the game was don’t give the other team anything, play with poise, execute, do your job, stay focused throughout the game, and there were times in the game where I felt like we lost our poise a little bit. But in the second half, we competed and did a fantastic job. Jalen played extremely well. We were able to move the ball offensively, even though we had to throw it, couldn’t run it very well. 

“But the tenacity that our players showed, the competitive spirit, the resilient attitude to overcome adversity – a lot of which we created for ourselves. Having 14 penalties in the game, mismanaging things in the clock at the end of the game really gave them opportunities that we need to be able to fix those things so we don’t help the other team. We helped the other team on their last drive to kick the field goal. We had two penalties and a missed tackle, and they’re right down the field and score in no time. So we have a lot of things to clean up, but we have a lot of things to be proud of. And I’m really excited about just the team effort. 

“We weren’t at our best in the first half today, but for guys to pull themselves up, to overcome adversity and resiliency – this was a great win for our team. It was a great win for the program. It was a great win for this team. It was an opportunity for this team to sort of show who they are in terms of what kind of team we have. And I think we can have a really, really good team. I just think self-inflicted wounds are going to be something that we can resolve because they’re all fixable, and we certainly need to do that if we’re going to be able to compete at a high level in the future.”

Saban on Jermaine Burton…

“We’ve always had a lot of faith, trust and confidence in him. He’s a big-play player. He’s been bothered by a little foot injury for a while, didn’t play much last week. He was back to 100 percent today. It was our plan to try to – we knew they were really good up front and we would struggle with their front. But we felt like if we could protect well enough and get some time that we could make some plays down the field, and I think that’s something we did very effectively. And obviously, he was extremely effective in the game at making some big plays.”

Saban on the bad news he mentioned in his opening statement…

“Yeah, I brought it up with the penalties and mismanaging and all that. This may be the record game for me in terms of messing up and still winning. It might be a record if you take the mess-ups and the penalties and you add them all together. But, then you look at the other side of that, what kind of resiliency and ability to overcome adversity does somebody have when you’re talking about the kind of competitive spirit that you have on your team, which I take that any day, because we can fix the other stuff.”

Saban on Jalen Milroe responding after interception…

“I think that’s one thing that Jalen has learned – just keep playing the next play and focus on that play. You’re going to make mistakes, bad things are going to happen sometimes, but you’ve got to be a point guard, man. You’ve got to make lots of assists, not very many turnovers, but you can’t let the turnover that you do make bother you. And distribute the ball to the rest of the guys on the team, let them make plays and I think he’s doing a really good job of that.”

Saban on defense creating turnovers after Alabama’s own turnovers…

“I think the turnover when we turned it over and then Caleb Downs intercepted the ball, that kind of changed the momentum of the game. I think the fact that we were able to keep them out of the end zone and play good in the red zone was really, really important early in the game, as well as it’s a little different if they score a touchdown in the end. But we allowed them to go down the field in two-minute situation because we had two penalties and gave up a big play, and we had several guys that could have made the tackle. But I’m just proud of our guys and the way they played, man. This is a great win for us.”

Saban on Malachi Moore, James Burnip…

“Malachi’s got a twisted ankle. (Burnip)’s got a pulled muscle in his leg.”

Saban on Jaeden Roberts, offensive line…

“Obviously we had a tough time running the ball. But they (brought) lots of pressure, which we were able to take advantage of making explosive plays down the field. It’s hard for me to say how he played, but Dalcourt had a little shoulder problem, so he was struggling a little bit. I thought (Roberts) went in and did a pretty good job.”

Saban on Trey Amos coming in after Moore’s injury…

“Trey did a good job. He got the one penalty for holding, but he did a really good job while he was in the game. The bigger adjustment is for Terrion, who goes and takes Malachi’s place when Malachi goes out, and then (Story) goes in and plays. So it’s a lot of changes. It’s hard to practice two positions as thoroughly as you need to to go in the game and execute, and when Malachi first went out of the game, we made some mental errors because of that. But I thought both guys did a good job of adapting in the game, and the other players around them really helped them play well by communicating well.”

Saban on what it means for team to win despite “record” number of mistakes…

“If we can fix it, I think that we could be a very good team. The injuries are starting to mount up a little bit, so there’s going to be opportunities for other people to step up, and how well they do that will be a huge determination because I don’t think we have any easy games coming up. A lot of tough teams in our league, a couple good quarterbacks coming up. So we’ve got lots of challenges, but if we could look within ourselves and fix what we need to fix internally ourselves and make a commitment to doing that and pay attention to detail, to the details that matter to winning in a game, that’s what we need to do a better job of.”

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