Nick Saban Not Satisfied, Looking for More from Team After First Scrimmage of Fall Camp

Saban seemed somewhat disappointed in some aspects of his team after the first of two scrimmages before the season begins.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — It takes time for a football team to reach its full potential.

The Alabama Crimson Tide is now under three weeks away from its season opener on Sept. 2 against Middle Tennessee State. Between now and then, there will be just one more team scrimmage at Bryant-Denny Stadium — next Saturday.

After Saturday's first scrimmage, head coach Nick Saban didn't hold back his thoughts regarding his team — and what needs to be improved on.

"One of the things that I think makes it a little difficult for the players is this is only our third day in pads," Saban said. "We've been in shells a couple times, or shoulder pads, a couple, three times. But now the scrimmage and trying to get the execution when you're going fast and it's your first time you're getting tackled, first time you're hitting, is not something that we're disappointed in, but certainly, [there are] areas that we can do a whole lot of improving which definitely we want to focus on."

"Every practice, every opportunity you get is not something that you want to endure in the practice, but you want to push yourself so you could get to the next level of where you need to be to stay focused for longer and play with more consistency for longer in every game that you play."

Some of the issues, like drops and penalties, seem to be a reoccurring problem.

"We still had drops at receiver. We still had mental errors on defense," Saban said. "We still jumped offside too many times when it was a hard count. We have a ton of things to work on, but in all honesty, if we didn't have a ton of things to work on, why would we have 20 more practices or whatever it is before the first game? I think it's the attitude that you approach each and every one of those practices."

Saban gave updates on several position groups — detailing what is going well and what still needs work.

How about everyone's favorite position battle this offseason?

"Everybody got reps today at quarterback," Saban said. "I'm not a stats guy so we're not interested in what their statistics were. We are going to be interested when we watch the film in how did they execute? Did they throw the ball the right place at the right time? Were they accurate in what they did? Did they take care of the ball so that we have a chance to play winning football at that position? And that's what we'll be evaluating."

The Alabama offensive line has a lot of potential in 2023-24. But Saban still needs to see more guys contribute to feel good about the depth.

"Inconsistent, not enough depth," Saban said. "We had a couple explosive runs but you know, when you're playing against each other, was the explosive run because of great execution or was it because of terrible execution on the other side? Until you watch the film it's kind of hard to evaluate. I just think we need to get more guys in the offensive line to be able to play winning football and we need to add depth to the group. We have maybe, six, seven guys that I think are in play but we need a lot more than that to get through the season."

One position group Saban is seeing a lot from is the secondary — his expertise. The Crimson Tide has a lot of different options at cornerback and safety — a good problem to have.

"We've got a bunch [of versatility]," Saban said. "I mean we're playing guys all over the place. [Terrion Arnold] can play different spots, [Kool-Aid McKinstry] can play different spots. [Malachi Moore] can play just about everywhere. Jaylen Key can play multiple positions. [We're] trying to develop Tony Mitchell to be able to play multiple positions. We need to have a lot of guys that can do that. [DeVonta Smith] can play a couple different things. Kristian Story can play a couple of different things."

"That's one of the things that we tried to do in camp, we got guys rolling all over the place. It does sort of sometimes affect the repetitions that a guy gets at a certain position, but I think it's important that guys have a background and a basic knowledge of information so [if] we get guys injured during the season we can move guys around and have a chance to get the best people in the field."

See Also:

Nick Saban Wants to Reach 'Level of Consistency' Between Quarterbacks and Receivers

Nick Saban Pushing Players Physicality Through Early Part of Camp

What Nick Saban Said After Alabama Football's First Scrimmage of Fall Camp