Saban hearkens back to 2015 Alabama offense as search for identity continues

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Alabama head coach Nick Saban was asked Monday what he sees as the identity of the Crimson Tide’s 2023 offense. He answered in a matter-of-fact manner.

“I don’t know that, in this past game, we had much of an identity,” Saban said.

Saban continued by pointing out areas he feels hampered Alabama against Texas.

“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,” Saban said. “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.”

The Crimson Tide (1-1) mustered 362 yards of total offense in the 34-24 loss to Texas, and both the aerial and ground attacks were inconsistent. Alabama turned the ball over twice on Saturday and committed five penalties on offense, two of which wiped away touchdown plays. 

Alabama has work to do on offense, and Saban was asked if he is taking lessons from any of his past Crimson Tide teams in order to establish an offensive identity. He mentioned the 2015 team that dropped a home game to Ole Miss, 43-37, in the third week of the season.

After that Week 3 loss to the Rebels, many wrote off not only Alabama’s 2015 campaign but the dynasty Saban had built in his first nine years in Tuscaloosa. The Crimson Tide figured things out on offense and would win its next 12 games, including the SEC Championship Game, the Cotton Bowl semifinal against Michigan State and ultimately, the CFP national title.

“We were struggling early in the season,” Saban said Wednesday. “We lost to Ole Miss early in the season. We were sort of struggling on offense, couldn’t find an identity, eventually found an identity and had a really good season. So you keep searching.”

Hoping his 2023 squad can see similar results, Saban continued on the keys to do that.

“I think you’ve gotta get the right combination of players, you’ve gotta get the right chemistry and everybody’s got to do a good job. I mean, I don’t care what the identity is, it comes down to execution, whether it’s running or passing or punting, aight. It all comes down to your ability to execute. And we’ve had too many inconsistencies in execution. 

“When you take drive-stoppers, OK, we had six offensive penalties. Those are drive-stoppers. Two of those penalties took points off the board. We got sacked five times. Sacks are drive-stoppers. Dropped balls are drive-stoppers. We only had one dropped ball. And turnovers are obviously drive-stoppers. The other team gets the ball and you don’t have it. 

“So when you add all those up, you should be at a much more efficient percentage than we were Saturday night. You can figure it out. So all those things come down to execution and people’s ability to execute to eliminate that. So we can keep working on it.”

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