Nick Saban: "This is going to be a good barometer for us to find out where we are as a team."
This Saturday evening, Texas will reciprocate Alabama’s trip to Austin last season. Texas will try to reciprocate in another way, with a victory, after Bama squeaked out of DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium with an intensely close 20-19 win under scorching hot conditions.
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The long anticipated rematch comes on the heels of Texas defeating Rice, 37-10, and Alabama cruising to victory against Middle Tennessee State by the score of 56-7.
There are numerous storylines entering the game, perhaps none more than familiarity. The teacher-pupil narrative is one that Nick Saban has long been familiar with. During halftime of the FSU-LSU telecast, Steve Sarkisian was asked about Saban’s 28-2 record against his former pupils. Sark responded about as intelligently was one could as he asked, “what’s everybody else’s record against him?”
In his opening remarks to media on Monday, Saban didn’t expressly acknowledge his familiarity with Texas, but he demonstrated with his remarks.
“Texas, I think everybody knows Sark is a really good coach. They’ve got a really good team. They’ve got a veteran team returning with 10 starters on offense, six on defense. Really good skill players on offense. Really good quarterback who can throw the ball effectively. They make a lot of explosive plays. (Xavier) Worthy is an outstanding receiver. They’ve got good running backs; they have a really good tight end. They’re very good on defense. They play really good up front; they’re physical, they played extremely well in the first game and they’re excellent on special teams.”
Texas’ coaching staff and roster talent make this game an easy pitch for Saban to his team. He sees the contest as a measuring stick for the Crimson Tide.
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“This is a really good team, all the way around, and it’s going to be an opportunity for our team to sort of, ‘where are we as a team, where are you as a player?’ You’re going to play against a really good player, that usually says ‘where am I as a player’. This is going to be a good barometer for us to find out where are we as a team.”
Many pundits will look to last season’s game for clues that could inform how this game could go. Saban views the previous game as somewhat useful but not entirely.
“You’re always looking at what at team does technically and it’s always most interesting to see what was their philosophy of what they did technically, whether it was to play defense against you or attack you offensively or what they did on special teams. So I think you use that information as a history of what you might see again and other things that they did periodically that changed. I don’t think you look back on a game from a psychological standpoint as much as you do a technical standpoint.”
Alabama enters the week as a +7 point favorite. Even though Alabama was on the road last season the Tide was favored by 20. The wild point swing illustrates this should be a good barometer for both programs.
