Everything Nick Saban Said After Alabama Demolished Vanderbilt

The Crimson Tide offense and defense excelled in the Southeastern Conference-opening win

Christopher Walsh | Sep 25, 2022

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Alabama Crimson Tide

The No. 2 Alabama football team flexed its muscles on both sides of the ball in a dominant 55-3 victory over Vanderbilt on Saturday night inside Bryant-Denny Stadium.

The contest was the Southeastern Conference opener for both programs.

The Crimson Tide accumulated a season-best 628 yards of total offense that included 400 yards through the air while limiting the Commodores to just 123 yards of total offense and 14 rushing yards in the blowout victory.

Quarterback Bryce Young finished the game with season highs of 385 passing yards on 25-of-36 through the air, including four touchdowns, resulting in a 195.9 quarterback rating. Wide receiver Ja’Corey Brooks led all receivers with a career-best 117 yards and a pair of touchdowns on six catches – all of which came in the first half. Jase McClellan (11-78-1) and Jamarion Miller (9-63-2) combined for 141 yards and three touchdowns on 20 carries to lead the ground attack.

Linebacker Will Anderson Jr. added three tackles for loss (-17) and two and a half sacks (-16) as part of his five total tackles to lead the defense. Linebacker Henry To’oTo’o had six tackles and added a tackle for loss (-4) to help make up the Crimson Tide’s eight total TFLs in the contest (-40).

Here's the full transcript of what Nick Saban said during his press conference:

So I think we've shown a pretty good pattern here of sort of making improvement a little bit of an upward trend. I think getting closer to you know playing the way we'd like to play, the challenges get greater you know as we go so we have to continue to focus on, you know, moving forward and proving it. But we had some guys played really well tonight. Bryce played really well. The defense played really well. Ja’Corey Brooks played really well. I think the team played really well. I think the team sort of bought into it, and everybody is trying to play to our standard, and I think this is probably the closest we've come to that so far this year. The key to the drill is can we continue to build on it.

On the defense:

We haven't given up a lot of explosive plays, we’ve played pretty well in the red area. I think this group plays really well together as a group. Your front seven and the back end are tied together for the most part, and we've got experienced players you know at linebacker and in the secondary at safety, and I think that's very helpful. The one thing we haven't done is created a lot of turnovers, which is something that we keep harping on all the time. I'll take this kind of defense without turnovers, but I'd like to see us get more turnovers and win the turnover battle in games. I think it's very significant in winning and losing.

On the pass rush:

I mean 41, 15, we've got some guys inside that can rush as well. I think you can't look at everything, like we played two games right where the people basically try to shrink the game right. So they didn't throw the ball much and when they did throw it the ball came out so fast you couldn't get any pass rush. So we've only played a couple teams that really do drop-back pass. It's a combination of good coverage and good rush that you know helps you get sacks, and the sacks and the pressure helps the coverage, so it's kind of a team defense thing. I didn't think we had an issue with pass rush before. I just think we didn't have a lot of opportunities

On the defensive line:

Yeah they did a good job. You know they do a lot of motions and I thought their plan early in the game was good. They had two tight ends and two wide receivers in the game because they made a lot of spread formations, we decided to play nickel. They put the big guys on the lower guys on the perimeter and you know move the ball early in the game. But our guys adjusted well to it and did a good job.

But I think the guys up front are doing a good job. I think we need more guys to be able to play so we can have more depth up front.

On Jahmyr Gibbs and his quick adjustment:

You know he's got a lot of experience and you know other than terminology … I mean somebody calls a power play a zone play and inside zone, and outside zone, a counter. They may call it a different name but it really isn't a difficult play. So experienced players can relate to things that they've done in the past that are similar to what we do here and then obviously it's a terminology thing. But they understand five-men protection, they understand six-man protection, they understand seven-man protection that just might be called something different. So experienced players can pick up on things much more quickly. You know Jahmyr’s a really bright guy and he's very conscientious. So it was it was kind of an easy transition, I think, for us and it didn't seem to be very (painful) for him, and I think our players did a good job of embracing him. He's very likeable guy. So worked out well.

Byron Young injury update:

He’s got a sprained ankle, so that's the only update I've got.

On downfield passing game:

Well I think it was kind of our plan going into this game that we would spread these guys out more and try to tackle in the secondary. We thought we had some pretty good matchups based on you know how they played and what they've done. I think the big credit, you know a lot of this because they do have really good pressure package and the offensive line did a good job and Bryce did a good job of handling that so we could pick up the pressure. We didn't get, you know, a lot of pressure that really affected how we could throw the ball down the field. So I thought it was a combination of both those things. But receivers played really well in the game, I don't think we really had a lot of drops. We were more precise and there was more precision than the route running, which helps with the timing of the quarterback and I thought Bryce you know did a really nice job as well.

On Will Anderson Jr.

Well Will’s a good player. We should be talking about him every week. He makes a lot of plays. He makes sacks. Plays hard. Prepares well. He's great leader on the team. I could talk about him for as long as you want to talk about him. But, I mean, the guy played that way last year, he plays that way this year, it's important to him. He has passion for the game. He understands the game. He's got power. He's got speed. He's got initial quickness, turn speed to power and pass rush. You know a lot of people trying to chip him and we're trying to move them around so it's harder for him to do that. Pete’s done a good job of designing a lot of things that have been helpful to our guys being able to get pressure up front, so we're not just straight rushing where they can chip us all the time.

On Ja’Corey Brooks:

We have high expectations what our guys can do and Ja’Corey certainly didn't disappoint tonight. He had a great start to the game and finished the game, and did a really, really good job and made some great catches. Again, it’s not … and I know I sound like a broken record here, but I can't tell you who's gonna have a good game. It depends on the coverage so you read the coverage and that's where you throw the ball relative to where the coverage is. And you might have a middle-of-the-field beater on that side and you might have a split safety beater on this side, but I can't tell which guys are going to get the ball, and Bryce doesn't know who's gonna get the ball either sometimes until after he reads the coverage. So Ja’Corey had a lot of opportunities tonight he took advantage of it and we were very pleased with the way they played.

On Henry To’oTo’o:

Well Henry is a perfect fit for the position. He's very instinctive. He’s a great communicator. He's a signal caller. I think he makes everybody around him play better. Because he's very instinctive he understands, [is] very football savvy, understands exactly how we're supposed to fit on the runs, and ends up in the right place. We try to play team defense and the linebackers should make a lot of tackles and he certainly hasn’t disappointed in any way, and he's played very well for us.

Offensive balance and running the ball:

I feel like we take what the defense gives. A lot of the plays that ended up being passes were called runs. So I'm more concerned about how we move the ball because we're gonna take what the defense gives. So if they're planning to stop the run we're gonna throw it. If they’re playing split safeties and playing soft we have to be able to run it. So it's not a matter of what the stat sheet says, it's a matter of – and a lot of our plays are packaged so I can't predict how many times we’re gonna run it and how many times we’re gonna pass it. But if we move the ball like we did in the first half I'm really happy if that's the kind of balance we need to have.

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