Sights and Sounds from Alabama's Turn at 2022 SEC Media Days

The Crimson Tide met with reporters at the College Football Hall of Fame on Tuesday Morning.

Christopher Walsh | Jul 19, 2022

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Alabama Crimson Tide

Nick Saban's Introductory comments:

This SEC Media Day thing is one of my favorite events of the year because it sort of signifies the beginning of the kickoff of another football season.

Lots of people love vacation, but I'm the leader of an organization, but I'm not the leader when I'm on vacation. When I get the list to take the garbage out, run the sweeper, Pledge the refrigerator, it's always, after a certain period of time, refreshing to be able to go back to work so that I can be the leader of an organization.

This is my 21st season in the SEC. A lot of great memories, a lot of relationships that have been built and memories that are going to be cherished for a long, long time.

Even though you have great family time and look forward coming off vacation, you have great family time, you always look forward to preparing for the challenges of another season.

We've had a really good off-season with our team. We had a good summer with our players. I think our team has made improvements and progress in a lot of areas, whether it's physical development, attitude development, and trying to develop a mindset that will allow us to have good team chemistry in the future.

As we always do, it's kind of like here we go again in making predictions about how young people, adolescents, will perform in the future. So that's why we play the games, that's why we have a season, so that we can sort of see how we grow and develop, how the team develops, sort of all the things you need to develop on a team, the togetherness, the positive energy and attitude, people being responsible for their own self-determination, the work, preparation, ability to overcome adversity, pride in performance that allows the team to play with the consistency you need to be successful for the entire season, especially in the SEC, which is a very challenging league.

I think it's also more difficult than ever to sort of predict how your team is going to develop in all these areas because we have more turnover on rosters in terms of how do you create a sense of object constancy, which we all strive for in our lives, sense of belonging, sense of family, sense of consistency in what's coming next, what the challenges are, who I am, where I'm going, how I'm going to get there.

These things are all really critical factors in developing, creating an identity personally, individually for players, as well as for a team. I think the more turnover you have on your roster, probably the harder it is to predict how those things actually happen.

I think it's also probably because of a lot of the changes that we have in college football as we move forward. It's also very, very important to stay focused on what do you need to do to have a program that creates value for players and their future in terms of their personal development, their academic development, ability to develop a career off the field, which really prepares them for their future after football, and how can they develop a career as a football player.

All these things contribute to how players can be more successful in life. I still think the focus needs to be on how do we continue to be able to have the kind of program that's going to help players develop value for their future, which is why we all went to college, all of us, me included, all of you. And that's with the changes, we want to make sure we sort of stay focused on the things that are most important for college student-athletes.

The players that we have here, Bryce, Will, Jordan Battle, have all represented our program in a first-class way. I think they've represented the university in a first-class way, and the conference.

All these guys are on track to graduate in December, which we're very proud of the academic standard that we've been able to maintain in terms of graduation rate. I think we're in the top three in the country in APR.

These guys have provided good leadership for our team. They've worked hard. They're the right kind of people. They've got the right stuff. They're very talented players.

But the challenge is, are the players on our team all going to buy into the principles and values and standards of the organization, which these guys have done a great job of demonstrating, so that we can create the kind of identity that will create the kind of consistency and performance we need to have a actual team.

So mindset is really important to that. Leadership, which these guys have done a great job of providing, is also very important to that. But it's also how did the other people on the team sort of buy into the leadership that has been provided. That's always a work in progress with new players in the organization, new players on the team.

So we have challenges on our team. I mean, we had seven players drafted, two first-round draft picks, some very, very good players at wide receiver and other positions that will be difficult to replace. I think we've had 113 players drafted in the last 14 years, 31 first-round draft picks. Very proud of the fact we've done a good job of creating value for players at the next level.

But it will be a challenge for us to replace the skill players lost, two great receivers on our team last year. We've got some significant challenges in replacing some offensive line people. Bryce Young is a great player, a great leader, a great quarterback obviously. But quarterback is also a position that may be one of the most difficult positions in all of sports to play if you're not surrounded by good people. So the challenge for us is to make sure we do an outstanding job of developing the players around him so that we can continue to be a very productive offensive team.

Defensively I think we've got seven starters back. Again, the biggest challenge is how do we replace the corners that we lost, because corner is probably the one position that puts the greatest restriction on what you can do on defense. That's going to be a significant challenge for us, as well.

I do think we have good specialists so we should be good at special teams. I'm really pleased with the new special teams coordinator, Coleman Hutzler, that we have. He's done a good job. The players have bought into it, which is always important on special teams.

From a staff standpoint, this is the first time in a long time we've had both coordinators, continuity in both coordinators, which I think is probably an important thing for us. The new coaches that we have brought in to replace coaches on our staff have fit in extremely well. They made a positive contribution in the relationships they've been able to develop with players and the energy and enthusiasm and new ideas they've brought to the organization. We're very, very pleased with the staff that we have right now in terms of how they can contribute to developing our team.

I'd like to thank you all for all that you do to create interest in college football. There's a lot of positive self-gratification that players gain from the things that you do, which I think college football is a great game, tremendous interest on a national level, to see how these players develop and see how the competitiveness balance is, something that fans and people that watch college football are always interested in.

I think you all have done a really good job of creating a circumstance that is very positive for our sport. We certainly thank you for that.

This story will be continually updated Tuesday morning

Published Jul 19, 2022

CHRISTOPHER WALSH

Christopher Walsh is the founder and publisher of BamaCentral, which first published in 2018. He's covered the Crimson Tide since 2004, and is the author of 26 books including Decade of Dominance, 100 Things Crimson Tide Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die, Nick Saban vs. College Football, and Bama Dynasty: The Crimson Tide's Road to College Football Immortality. He's an eight-time honoree of Football Writers Association of America awards and three-time winner of the Herby Kirby Memorial Award, the Alabama Sports Writers Association’s highest writing honor for story of the year. In 2022, he was named one of the 50 Legends of the ASWA. Previous beats include the Green Bay Packers, Arizona Cardinals and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, along with Major League Baseball’s Arizona Diamondbacks. Originally from Minnesota and a graduate of the University of New Hampshire, he currently resides in Tuscaloosa.