Everything Nick Saban said on Monday of South Florida game week

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Alabama coach Nick Saban spoke to reporters Monday, the first day of South Florida week. Below is everything he said to begin the third game week of the year.

“I don’t think it’s any huge secret or anything that we did not execute on a consistent enough basis in this last game. Too many turnovers, penalties, mental errors on defense, sacks and things that are helpful in being consistent, in terms of whether it’s sustaining drives, not giving up big plays that lead to field position and scores. So the focus is 100 percent on how we get it turned around. The future is now. So how do we get our players to … We’ve got to do a better job as coaches to help them be able to play better more consistently in the game. Put them in a position where they have the best chance to be successful. But I think all these things are very fixable. I believe in our players. I think we’ve got good players.

“Texas has a good team, and just like I said before, it was a test. It was like an early test in the semester. We didn’t grade out very well on the test, so what are we going to do to get a better grade. I think that’s what we have to really learn and grow from and make a commitment to. I think our players with the kind of character and attitude that we’ve shown so far as a team, I think they’ll respond the right way. And I think the coaches will do the same.

“South Florida has a first-year coach, and they’re moving the ball and scoring points. And it’s not about necessarily always who we play, it’s how we technically execute against the team that we play so we have a chance to be successful. It’s a road game. It’s our first road game. They’ve got some good players. They’ve got a pretty good quarterback. They play hard on defense. Everyone’s capable but it’s about you playing to your standard, us playing to our standard and trying to play the kind of football that we need to play so that we have a chance to be more successful on a more consistent basis.”

Saban on pass protection…

“I think we gave up one sack on a pressure. Most of it was we gave up a sack on a three-man rush. We gave up several sacks on four-man rushes. I think we’re too soft-setting in the line. We’ve got to be firmer in protection. The pocket can’t collapse. But people have to get open. The quarterback has to process quickly and get the ball out of his hand. We can’t hold the ball, so it’s a combination of all those things that I think was a problem. But it wasn’t like there was some scheme that they were running that we didn’t have that picked up. We just didn’t get them blocked like we need to.”

Saban on the identity of this Alabama offense…

“I don’t know that in this past game we had much of an identity. I think we started out early in the game being able to run the ball effectively and did not mix up the play-action pass to complement the run game. And eventually, it got harder and harder to run the ball. We did make some explosive plays on offense, but it’s too hit or miss. You’ve got to have consistency to be able to sustain drives. And that’s the one thing that we didn’t do. We made explosive plays, but we weren’t consistent enough in terms of developing an identity to use your term. But the identity that we’d like to have is to be physical enough to be able to run the ball consistently effectively, but also be able to have a good play-action game to go with it, be able to drop back when we need to and be efficient and effective in all those areas. I can’t say that we were in this game other than making some explosive plays. We didn’t do that well enough.”

Saban on the pass rush through two weeks… 

“I think it was OK in the first game. Of course, it was a different level of competition. And I think that obviously, we didn’t get any sacks (against Texas). We didn’t have a lot of success, the kind of success that we’d like to have on third down and I think that’s something that we need to improve. We didn’t do a great job of covering them. Sometimes you get coverage sacks, so we didn’t cover them long enough that the quarterback couldn’t get the ball out of his hand quickly. We didn’t affect the quarterback in the game and we all need to improve on that.” 

Saban on 2-for-1 game scheduling… 

“Well, I think the goal when you try and play home and home games is to try to enhance the quality of opponents that you have. So you just can’t go out and say ‘Hey, let’s play a game’ and everybody agrees to it. You gotta negotiate your way through to see who you can play and who can’t play. It’s been our goal — now, this was before conference realignment so that may have some impact on future — was we want to since we’re not going to play a neutral site game, can we get two quality opponents to be able to play in every season besides the SEC games. So we have 10 games that — and look, it’s not easy to find people that will play you and sometimes you have to give and take a little bit to try to get those games to where we have a quality home schedule and we are planning two teams that are Division-I caliber, decent teams to play. Scheduling is very difficult. We’ve tried to get it where we’re playing two teams, and I think most years we are.” 

Saban on the team’s energy before the Texas game… 

“I think the energy level was good. I think we started out the game really good. Did we sustain it for 60 minutes in the game? No. Did we play well in the fourth quarter? No. But it’s not much about how you start, we started out I felt really well in the game: good energy, physical, ran the ball effectively in the beginning of the game; but our ability to sustain was not where it needs to be and we didn’t play well enough in the fourth quarter.” 

Saban on Jalen Milroe’s confidence… 

“I think it’s important in all positions, but one thing you don’t want to do is get frustrated as a player. You don’t want one play to affect the next play and to stay positive. But you can say stay positive but we all have self-talk, right? You gotta believe it. You can’t just say, ‘OK, I’m gonna do this,’ but don’t believe you can do it. You gotta believe and trust in yourself, too. So I think the players stayed positive. They tried to keep the energy level up. They didn’t get frustrated in the game and Jalen didn’t either. But still, you got to trust and have faith and confidence in doing what you’re coached to do on a consistent basis and that’s going to help you be successful.” 

Saban on the mindset of the team right now…

“I would be shocked if this team does not respond in a really positive way to trying to get better, to try to do the things they need to do to get fixed. But we have to have better execution. We’ve gotta do simple things better, whether it’s pass protection, blocking, controlling the line of scrimmage, not giving up big plays on defense, whatever. Those are the things that are gonna change. This is not just about the attitude of players. They all wanted to win more than any fan, more than anybody in this room, and they put all the work and preparation into it. And I feel badly for them that we weren’t able to do whatever we need to do as coaches to try to help them have a better chance to be successful in the game. We’re all responsible for it, and we’re all going to try to work hard to get better. So I would be shocked if these guys don’t come in here today with the attitude that we’re gonna go out there and try to improve and get better. The future is now. We’ve gotta do it now. That’s the main thing.”

Saban on Tyler Buchner…

“Well he played really well in the last scrimmage and he’s done well in practice. So, we feel really good about sort of how he’s continued to improve and develop and the confidence in what he’s doing. And have a good feeling around the teammates and receivers and all that type of thing.”

Saban on if he considered making changes on the offensive line…

“Not really. We have confidence in the guys that are playing and sure, they need to play better. But if we thought someone was more ready to play, we want the competition, we want guys to improve, to compete for playing time but we also want them to be able to take advantage of the opportunity when they get it. So, they’ve got to prepare themselves properly to be able to do that and we’re going to keep working with as many guys as we can to get them to be able to play winning football.”

Saban on wide receivers, tight ends…

“Well, we only had one dropped ball, one thing that you could consider being a dropped ball in the last game. That part of it was pretty decent in the last game. I don’t think we always got the ball to guys at times, and I think there were times when we didn’t do a good enough job of getting open so that we had options. I’m not disappointed in our receivers. I think our receivers can make explosive plays. Everyone’s gotta be more consistent so we can develop the timing in the passing game between the protection, the receivers and the quarterback so that we can be more consistent in what we’re doing and eliminate some of the negative plays. That’s the key to the drill.”

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