Everything Nick Saban Said Following Alabama's First Practice of 2023

Saban met with reporters following the opening of the 2023 spring practice season.

Alabama Athletics

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama football hosted its first practice of the 2023 spring season on Monday afternoon at the Thomas-Drew Practice Fields. Following the practice, head coach Nick Saban his first press conference of the season.

Here's everything that Saban said during his Monday evening press conference:

Nick Saban Transcript - March 20, 2023

Opening Statement

“I was very impressed with the way our team went about the offseason program, the progress that we made not only in conditioning but also in simulated training and guys learning and understanding a little bit about what they need to do. Some of the reason for having a later spring practice was having 26 midyear guys who haven’t been in the program again. It gave us a little more opportunity to acclimate them to what it takes to get in condition, learn a little bit about what you need to know to go out there and be able to execute and do your job and have a little better chance to do that.“Because the No. 1 focus of spring practice is on your development. Every player, we want you to focus on your development. Not what team you are, not where you’re at, not the reps, but take advantage of every opportunity that you get to be accountable and responsible to do your job and take pride in paying attention to detail so that you can do your job well. A lot of opportunity. Everybody has an opportunity. Everybody has an opportunity to compete for a position. You guys love depth charts – we don’t really have a depth chart right now. We wanna give everybody reps and everybody a chance to show what they can do and see how each and every individual might be able to contribute to the team next year.“We have quite a few guys that are injured to some degree. Probably Deontae Lawson and Dallas Turner are two guys that are probably out of the spring completely. Both guys have had surgeries. Shouldn’t be any issues for them moving forward, but they’re probably out for the entire spring. Roydell Williams and DeVonta Smith both are recovering from injuries but probably will be able to return at some point during spring practice. And then Robbie Ouzts, Jah-Marien Latham and Justin Eboigbe will be able to do certain things in practice, but they will be limited to some of the things that they can and can’t do and probably won’t be able to have full contact or be involved in the scrimmage at all this year.“Tony Mitchell has been suspended from the team and all team activities until we gather more information about the situation and what his legal circumstance is. Everybody’s got an opportunity to make choices and decisions. There’s no such thing as being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You’ve gotta be responsible for who you’re with, who you’re around and what you do, who you associate yourself with and the situations that you put yourself in. It is what it is, but there is cause and effect when you make choices and decisions that put you in bad situations."

On Travaris Robinson, the roles for the defensive coaching staff…

“T-Rob has been here for a year. I think he’s a really good coach. He’s been a coordinator before. I think he’s very capable. So Kevin Steele is going to walk around basically. So we have an inside ‘backer coach, an outside ‘backer coach, a D-line and a secondary coach. And then you’ve got me walking around, and I don’t know what exactly I contribute, but I’ll be out there walking around, doing something. They’re still trying to find something I can do, but I’m gonna try to do something. That’s really kind of how we’re organized.”

On the opportunities for Kool-Aid McKinstry and Malachi Moore as the more experienced guys in the secondary...

"It's an opportunity for them to play. It's an opportunity for him to create value for themselves in their future by how they play. But it's no different for them than it is all the other guys. How responsible and accountable are you to do your job? How do you pay attention to detail so that you can self assess and improve and try to get better at what you do and have a sense of urgency about how you approach everything every day? How they pay attention to detail, so that's I think that's everybody's opportunity. I don't see it any different for those guys. They have experience, experience probably matters, their leadership probably matters and how it helps other players around them develop. But I think that creates value for them as well."

On the incoming players from the transfer portal...

"Well, you know what we've tried to do when it comes to the portal is look at guys that we think can make an immediate impact on our team. We have always tried to build our team with good recruiting of good young players, who sort of fit the culture of what we want to do, and if we feel like we have a need at a position where we see someone who can come in and make an immediate impact, and I think most of the players that we've taken from the portal, and I think there's been six prior to this year, five of those guys all made significant impacts on the team. One guy got injured and probably didn't have the opportunity to do it, or he probably would have made an impact as well. So we're going to continue that same philosophy of how we bring guys into the team. We still have to manage the roster. We still have to manage numbers. And I think you always got to take that into consideration when you're dealing with the portal as well."

On the status of the offensive line...

"I like the players that we have on the offensive line. I think we have some bigger, more physical players. I think they obviously don't have as much experience. But I like the attitude. I like their temperament. I like their toughness. And I think the number one thing is we got to create some depth. You know at that position, we probably lost more players than we gained even though the players that we gained we're excited about how and how they can contribute and what their future might be. So probably need to add a little depth at that position."

On the biggest challenge with so much change this season...

"Well, I've said this before, but I look at every season like I just took the job. So [if] I just took the job, what would we have? We'd have new coaches. We'd have new leadership. We'd have to create a new culture on this team. We'd have to create a new leadership on our team from players as well as coaches. I would have to make sure that the coaches really understood the culture and the system that we wanted to play with, whether it was offense, defense or special teams. It's great to have continuity, especially in leadership positions, but this is not something that we don't have some experience at making sort of adaptations, being flexible, letting people add things that they know will be beneficial to us. Contribute to how we can fix some of the problems that we've had in the past. New energy and new enthusiasm is always helpful. So that's what we're basically going to try to do with the new people that we have. And hopefully we'll have some players that step up and become leaders, but they're going to have to earn the right to do that. You know, we haven't picked a leadership group yet. We have an advisory committee and with the advisory committee is supposed to do this. Go back to their room to their group and advise them on my and our message that they all need to understand. Whoever does that the best has obviously got a chance to be a leader, but we haven't decided who that is yet. So they have to earn the right to do that."

On coordinators breaking in young QBs...

"What if you had an older guy that had been there not too long ago, what would be the difference? (unintelligible) I think the most important thing is not young, not old: good; effective; good teacher; good quarterback coach' can develop quarterbacks; can help them sort of learn and grow at the position. I think that was one of the critical factors in the search for a new coordinator was the guy would be a really good quarterback coach and has a history of being able to develop quarterbacks. I think we did that."

On new ILB coach Robert Bala...

"Ah I thought you were talking about players, you're talking about coaches now? Um, we interview a lot of people so 'A' we're looking for guys that fit from a character standpoint, who have good character, who are gonna set a good example and be good leaders for the players on our team. Secondly, we're looking for people who have knowledge, especially knowledge of our system in terms of what we do and how we do it. And can a guy be a good teacher? And in the interview process we thought Robert was an excellent candidate as a young guy that could come in and do all those things well for us."

On QB opening, what you like about candidates...

"Look I think everybody has an opportunity. None of the guys have a significant amount of experience. I think Jalen played one game, half a game where he really had to play a game and he made a lot of plays. He made plays in a different way than Bryce made plays. Ty, who made significant progress throughout the year but never really had much of an opportunity to play in critical situations in a game, is also someone that we think has developed and made a lot of improvement and has a lot of potential to be a pretty good player. Then we got two young freshmen that they probably have a long way to go but they're eager to learn and they're eager to try and improve and get a better understanding of what we need to do. Development at that position is really gonna be a critical thing for our team this year because I like the players that we have around them."

Live Blog

2023 Alabama Football Spring Practice Dates

Monday, March 20

Wednesday, March 22

Thursday, March 23 - Alabama Pro Day

Friday, March 24

Tuesday, March 28

Thursday, March 30

Monday, April 3

Wednesday, April 5

Friday, April 7 - Scrimmage 1

Monday, April 10

Wednesday, April 12

Friday, April 14

Saturday, April 15 - Scrimmage 2

Tuesday, April 18

Thursday, April 20

Saturday, April 22 - 2023 A-Day Game

See Also:

33 Days Until A-Day: Alabama Football Spring Practice Preview

Alabama Hiring Tommy Rees as New Offensive Coordinator

Kevin Steele Hired as Alabama Defensive Coordinator