Nick Saban Clarifies Comments on Sign-Stealing, Addresses Defensive Struggles: "No One Is Satisfied With The Way We Played"

The Crimson Tide coach shed light on his comments from the victory at Ole Miss and what the defense needs to improve on against Georgia this weekend

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — After taking some time for the dust to settle on the University of Alabama's 63-48 victory over Ole Miss this weekend, coach Nick Saban was asked, during his weekly Monday press conference, if there was any evidence to his sign-stealing comments following the game. 

“I think what I was really speaking to was we were more like, I felt like we were always one play behind," Saban said. "When I say one play behind, I mean, sometimes when you play in the NFL against Joe Montana or somebody really good, you always feel like you’re one play behind if you call this, they do the right thing against that. I think that was more sort of what I was referring to, as if they knew what we were going to do. 

"Some of that is our issue in terms of how we disguise things. They were going fast. We were struggling to get lined up. We didn’t do a very good job of disguising things. So they were able to take advantage of a lot of situations and they know us well, so all those things probably contributed to me feeling a little bit like we were one play behind.”

Now heading into a heated matchup with No. 3 Georgia this Saturday inside Bryant-Denny Stadium, Saban and his assistants begin work on plugging up the holes on the, after allowing a school-record 643 yards to the Rebels. 

Saban explained how the coaches play a role in positioning the players for success on the defensive side of the ball.

"First of all, I don't think the call is necessarily the issue," Saban said. "I think the execution of the call has been the issue. Sometimes we coach players for what we want them to be. But we really need to coach them for what they are. And when I say that I'm talking about how much experience do they have? How much can they handle? How much can they execute? So, if the players are mis-executing, that's not a good thing from a coaching standpoint because that means we have to do a better job of teaching them or make sure we're not trying to teach them too much so they go out there and they can’t perform well with confidence and make plays we’d like for them to make. 

"So you mentioned two players that have experience [Dylan Moses and LaBryan Ray] but we have 11 guys out there at once so it only takes one guy to make a mistake. And when everybody gives ‘my bad’ one time, that's 11 mistakes. Well, that can be a lot of yards. And we've had some guys that have made multiple mistakes, either have to get fixed or replace them. And we're going to work in every endeavor and try to get better. Believe me, this is no one satisfied with the way we played. I think it was very challenging, pace of play, all that type of thing with some of the players that we have, you know, a couple guys really contributed to a lot of those mental errors but we just got to get them all fixed.”