Everything Nick Saban said following Alabama's second scrimmage

The Alabama football team wrapped up their second and final scrimmage on Saturday as the Week 1 game against Miami quickly approaches. Soon after the scrimmage, coach Nick Saban stepped to the podium to take questions from the media.

Here’s everything he had to say in the press conference.

Opening statement:

I think the number one thing you want to see in a scrimmage like today is number one, you want to sort of evaluate improvement from last week to this week. I thought there was a significant amount of improvement, especially in certain players.

A lot of players got a lot more opportunity today because we had some guys banged up, which is a good thing. Not that we’re banged up, but that they got an opportunity. It’ll be interesting to see how some of those guys took advantage of that. And I think number two is because we played a game-like situation for a big part of the beginning of the scrimmage. Kind of get to see who can go out there and play and execute and do things when the coaches aren’t standing behind them and telling them what to do.

So, that shows maturity, confidence, and it’s important to have as many guys as possible on your team that can go out and do that and play what I call winning football. That means you can go out and execute, do your job, know what to do and how to do it, why it’s important to do it that way. So, we made progress. I think the big thing is how do we look at this moving forward.

You know, I think players have to understand that it’s not just about what you do in the game. It’s how you prepare for the game. It’s how you practice every day. You’ve heard me say many times before ‘it’s not just getting it right, it’s doing it so many times that you can’t get it wrong.’ And I think that’s the time of the year that it is, and I know camp has been tough and even though we started school on Wednesday, I still look at these first two weeks as pretty much camp-like practices.

There was a lot of good things out there today, but there’s also a lot of things that we need to improve on. So, I don’t think anybody is disappointed in where we are, but I don’t think anybody’s satisfied with where we are either.

No significant injuries out there today. We had a couple guys out, which I had mentioned before. Kendall Randolph, DeMarcco [Hellams], Shane Lee. So, there were some guys that were out going in, there were some guys that we held out and had limited reps, got a lot of reps for some other people. So, I’d say all-in-all, we made good progress, but we’ve got a long way to go.

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Question: Being a second scrimmage like this, how much of it is a mental test for the younger guys, and how closely do you watch the demeanor of the younger guys in moments of high pressure?

Well basically, I think the biggest thing that we have to deal with, with our guys, is you have anxiety that these players have. First of all, they read what you guys write. They read that they’re supposed to be in the playoffs. They read that they’re No. 1. They read all these things that I’ve referred to this as ‘rat poison’ before. Alright, so that creates a lot of anxiety, and everybody thinks they have to elevate their game.

So, you got that going on with the older guys, which I’m trying to convince them ‘hey man, we just got to play our game. Everybody’s got to play your game. Don’t put pressure on yourself and think you got to be something that you’re not, and we got to play together as a team.’

Then you got young guys who are recruited that have high expectations for what they want to accomplish and what they want to do, and in some cases, it may not be realistic in terms of how long they focused on what they have to do, the process of getting it right, and they got a little frustrated because they’re not making the kind of progress that they want to make.

So, you got kind of all these variables sort of circling around on your team, and we really got to get everybody in the right mindset. Just to buy into doing the things that they need to do to play well, play their game. I think for different guys on the team, there’s anxiety levels for different reasons, and we want to have high achievement, motivation and low anxiety and have guys excited about playing.

You know, Earnie Johnson made an interesting point when he talked to the team. Do you say ‘I got to do this’ or do you say ‘I get to do this.’ We get to play. We get the challenges of the season. We get the opportunity to play some great football teams, some on the road, some at home, great SEC schedule. So, we get to do these things. That’s how I want everybody to look at it, so they got a lot of positive energy and enthusiasm to get after it.

Question: Hey Coach, I just want to ask about the quarterbacks, and really how you’ve seen both Bryce [Young] and Paul [Tyson] progress over the course of the preseason?

All three guys got reps today. Jalen Milroe got quite a few reps too. We’re trying to work all three guys and see how they develop. I think Bryce did OK today. I think we played better around him today so he had more opportunities to make plays and made some really good plays.

I think the offense scored the first two, three four times they had the ball in game-like situations, which is really good. And there’s obviously things we have to clean up. Because we had a couple of guys out from the offensive line, as the scrimmage went on, maybe we didn’t play quite as good as we could have.

But we’ve had pretty good balance on offense. We were able to run the ball halfway decent. Got a little bit more consistency in the passing game. That’s not the passer. That’s everybody around him doing the things so that we can develop that confidence and togetherness we need to have a little more consistency in that part of the game.

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Question: What did you see out of John Metchie in the scrimmage today, and just how does he complement what Slade Bolden brings from a skillset standpoint when they’re both on the field together?

Well, you know, Jamo Williams is a guy that’s really made a big impact in this camp. You know we’ve been trying to manage, you know Metch through. He’s coming off of a couple surgeries, coming back, he’s been played really well when he’s had the opportunity. He made some big plays today. And you know Slade’s doing good, JoJo Earle’s doing good.

A couple of the freshmen — other freshmen guys — are, you know, coming along. So I think it’s going to be a bit of a work in progress with this group. But I do think we have enough talent there to have some really good players that can play fast and be explosive and, obviously, you know John Metchie is the guy that has the most experience doing that and we feel like he’s getting more and more healthy, and I thought he played fast today.

Question: Hey Coach, obviously you said that Kendall [Randolph] is out with that ankle issue, but how have you seen the offensive line start to come together as a unit?

We’ve got work to do. You know we got work to do. I think there’s some competition at several positions. There’s some competition at right tackle there’s some competition at center.

Evan Neal, and Emil, are both, you know, good. We held Emil out today. So, but, you know, I think I think we’ve got work to do, especially, in that group playing together and getting confidence in the calls and especially in pass protection and so forth. But I’m confident that they’re going to make the kind of progress. I saw a lot of improvement from Week 1 to Week 2

Question: Going to the opposite side of the ball, Will Anderson’s a guy that’s obviously taken that next step from Year 1 to Year 2. What have you seen from him and the guys trying to get a pass rush?

He’s been really good. You know, Will is probably the guy that creates more havoc, you know for defense in terms of his ability to pass rush. He’s a more complete player now and understands the whole scheme — is very diverse, you know, as a player in terms of what he can do so. You know, he’s had a really good camp and you know it’s gonna be important that we continue to develop some other guys off the edge so they can’t just feature, you know, worry about him.

Question: Coach, you had mentioned at the beginning of camp that Jahleel Billingsley had some work to do to get back up the depth chart at tight end. How did that position look today?

Well that’s up to him. That’s not up to me. He knows what he’s supposed to do in practice. He knows what he’s supposed to do. You know this is not a democracy. Everybody doesn’t get to do what they want to do. Everybody doesn’t get to do what they feel like doing. You’ve got to buy in and do what you’re supposed to do to, you know, be a part of the team and do the things you need to do in practice every day. A sense of urgency, play fast, execute, do your job.

It’s a privilege for everybody to go out there and be able to create value for yourself. And we have scouts at practice every day. So, everybody thinks it’s just about playing in a game. It’s not just about playing in the game. They watch practice film, they watch guys every day. You guys on ESPN, you evaluate what happens in the game, but they evaluate what happens every day, what you do every day.

So, what are you doing every day to create any value for yourself? But you got to create value for yourself so that your teammates and everybody gets confidence in you so that you can, you know you have their confidence when you go out there and play, and that’s up to every player on the team. I don’t make that decision for everybody on the team. I try to get them to do it. I try to point out the importance of them doing it, but it’s up for them to do it. It’s up to them to do it. Now maybe that’s not my question to answer.

Question: Back during the spring, you had said about Jordan Battle that you had wanted to see more of him in terms of him taking a leadership standpoint. How has he answered that challenge and how is he doing this fall camp?

He’s doing really well. He’s been the leader back there. He makes all the calls. He’s very smart. Him and DeMarco both were playing really, really well. Of course, DeMarco sprained his ankle. Hopefully, in a week or so, maybe he’ll be back. I don’t know it’ll be day to day. After he gets out on this boot, he’ll probably be weight bearing and how fast he comes back after that, we’ll have to see.

But those two guys were really, really playing well. They’re both smart. They both know the system. They don’t make very many mistakes and Jordan Battle has been a real leader, you know, in the backend. So he’s done everything that we’ve asked and he does it in the way that we like for him to do it, and I’m very pleased with the progress that he’s made. 

Here’s the video from the press conference:

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