Everything Nick Saban Said After ULM at Alabama

The Crimson Tide coach went over what he saw from the sideline at Bryant-Denny Stadium during his postgame press conference.

Nick Saban Full Transcript Post Louisiana-Monroe

Opening Statement 

“My message to the players before the game was that all these things that we do matter. You're being judged to a standard as an individual player, we're being judged to a standard as a team. And everybody's going to make a choice and decision about are you going to play to that standard on a consistent basis, not every now and then. There's a lot that goes into that: it's preparation, it's how you practice, it's focusing on the things you need to do when you play against good competition so that you have a chance to be successful. Then the message after the game was, did you do that or not? And how would you be judged based on how you played and what you did? Obviously, a lot of good things out there today. We scored on defense, scored a couple of times on special teams, and had 262 yards in punt returns. We made plays on offense, started a little slow, but got better as it went. Defensively, I think we did a pretty good job and made some progress. There's some evidence out there that this is the standard that we want to play to, but I think everybody's got to judge what do we need to do to continue to improve with SEC play starting next week. So, it's gonna take a little better effort on everybody's part to play with consistency."

Is there a minimum number of touches he'd like to see RB Jahmyr Gibbs get a game?

"He's definitely a guy that's a really good playmaker and especially when he gets the ball in space, although he's a very good runner as well.  I think Bryce has a lot of confidence in him. I think that, you know, we were running some vertical patterns today down the field. Some of those things were checkdowns that he got, and they were so far back trying to take away the the vertical plays that he had space, made some really good runs, made some people miss. I think on a couple of those there were some really good blocks down the field as well. But he is an explosive guy, and we need as many weapons as possible on offense, and he's certainly been one of the most consistent weapons we've had to this point."

Special teams?

"Well obviously if you get 262 yards, block a punt, score a touchdown, that’s pretty good stuff. To this point in the season, and I challenged the players this week on that, we had not made one explosive play or significant play in the game with special teams. We didn't do anything that really hurt us, but we weren't making special teams an advantage to us. 

"So I tried to challenge the players that we need to do a better job of executing because it really comes down to that. Because every time you don't have a play or you get a punt blocked, somebody didn't block the right guy, or somebody didn't do the right thing on the punt return, didn't clamp, didn't double the right guy. So today the execution was a lot better, and we were able to take advantage of it."

Evaluating the downfield passing game

"I don't think you can really say, 'how did you evaluate it.' If the team plays split safeties, which they did a lot of, they're going to be able to take the downfield passing game away. But then when you throw to the guys and take what the defense gives, somebody else runs the ball for 25 or 30 yards. So it's not really fair to say what was the downfield passing game today?

"I think we missed one shot where [Jermaine] Burton was open, and Bryce overthrew him a little bit. But I think he made good decisions about not trying to force the ball down the field, you know, when they they're playing really soft and trying to take those things away, and you take what the defense gives, which he did. And we made some explosive plays because of it."

Emphasis of receivers contributing in the blocking game?

"It's important because, those were sort of loose plays that you're talking about, a lot of these smokes and bubbles that we throw, which I refer to as 'advantaged throws,' receivers have to block. If they can't block the guys on the perimeter, because it's usually a one-on-one situation, you gotta block the guys, there's another guy to tackle, you've gotta make somebody miss. Well, if you don't make a good block on the first guy, you never get to the second guy. So we really have to emphasize that. And we do a lot of what we call force drills, which are perimeter plays where perimeter players have to block so that we develop that, and I think it's really important. Nineteen (Kendrick Law) made a heck of a block on the one today."

What does he look for in a punt returner?

"Well, JoJo [Earle] is our punt returner, and he hasn’t been out there yet. He was the punt returner going into the season, did it some last year. So I think first of all, the most important thing about punt return is possession of the ball. So if you can make a first down and affect field position by having an average of at least 10 yards a return, I think that's kind of our goal. Now, we’d like to break ‘em and make big plays, and we can do that. The most important thing is... We stopped the other team. We have the ball back, aight? So the most important thing is having a guy back there that's going to field the ball, and not... How many points did you see in the first two weeks of the season? That impacted and affected the outcome of games. So you know, that's the most important thing is possession of the ball. And if the guy's got the feel and the instinct to know when to fair catch and when he has a chance to return the ball, that's even better. 

But the key to that is the people up front, not the return. How do they clamp people? How do they stab and lag people? And how do they sit and fit them down the field? And there were a lot of good blocks on a lot of these returns today.

Did he see anything on film or in practice that Alabama would have a big day returning punts?

"We are we're trying to practice in perfection all the time. You know when a team kicks the way they kick and you have three shields, three big guys in the shield, you have less cover guys. So if you do a good job on their gunners because they only really have the center on two guys on both sides they can cover, that lends itself to have an opportunity to return. 

So, look, I always have an expectation that what we do in practice is we can take it to the game and execute it, and it's gonna work. I never have a feeling 'hey, this is going to work and that isn't' just because of what happened in practice. But I do feel like when you play three-man shield teams, if you can get good clamps on people, you've got a chance to return the ball. That's the most important thing. When the returner catches the ball, how far are the people in front of him? And do you have somebody stabbing them?"

Freshman OL Tyler Booker?

"Well, I've got lots of confidence in him. He's a young player who has played extremely well. He started out at tackle. We moved him to guard. I view him as a guy that's competing for a starting position with the other two guys. So he's physical, we need to be more physical on the offensive line. So we're going to play him."

Getting more tight ends involved

"It's not really a challenge. I think that you've heard me talk before that tight ends and running backs are great mismatch players when you've got guys that can make plays at those positions. And we have a lot of confidence in Cam [Latu.] We have a lot of confidence in three or four or five of the running backs that we have that they can all make plays in the passing game as well as running it. 

"We've just got to do a better job of being consistent in how we do things so that we do things the right way. when you play smart, you do things the right way. If the route's six yards, you run it at six. You don't run it at four, the quarterback's not ready to throw you the ball. If you're supposed to run it at 12, you've got to run it at 12. We had some opportunities today. We didn't always take advantage of it. We weren't as good on third down as we usually are. And that's something we got to work on."

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