Notebook: Saban Says Alabama Has Record Game for 'Messing Up and Still Winning'

Even with 14 penalties, two turnovers and questionable clock management on the final drive, the Crimson Tide held on for a road win at Texas A&M.

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — It wasn't always pretty, but the Alabama Crimson Tide held on for a 26-20 win at Texas A&M inside Kyle Field on Saturday night. 

Not only did Nick Saban ask reporters at the beginning of his press conference if they wanted to hear about the good or the bad first, as Alabama had 14 penalties, two turnovers, dropped passes, clock mismanagement issues on the final drive and more, he made this win a new personal record for him.  

"So this may be the record game for me in terms of messing up and still winning," Saban said postgame. "It may be the record. If you take the mess ups and the penalties and you add them all together. But then you look at the other side of that is, what kind of resiliency and ability to overcome adversity does somebody have and you're talking about the kind of competitive spirit you have on your team, which I'd take that any day because we can fix the other stuff."

Sack City

Alabama and Texas A&M combined for 11 sacks (six for the Aggies and five for the Crimson Tide) as both teams were doing everything they could to put pressure on the opposing quarterbacks. 

Sacks have been an issue for the Alabama offensive line all season, but the Crimson Tide defense has been able to really ramp things up since not getting any sacks against Texas a month ago. It had five at South Florida and against Ole Miss, and four last week at Mississippi State.  

Redshirt senior Justin Eboigbe led Alabama with 1.5 sacks Saturday against the Aggies. 

"We wanted to make them one-dimensional," Eboigbe said after the game. "We know they like to run the ball, and we wanted to take that away from them and get after them. We feel like, as a unit, we did our job. We wanted to affect them– not just get him on the ground, but affect the way he throws it, get him off his spots, getting him out of the pocket. We feel like we had a good game plan."

Special Safety

Saban said postgame that freshman safety Caleb Downs' interception changed the momentum of the game, but the play that might have won it for the Crimson Tide was the safety with 5:55 to go in the fourth quarter to make it a two-possession game. 

Eboigbe pressured Texas A&M quarterback Max Johnson into an intentional grounding in the end zone, which put Alabama up 26-17 at the time. 

It was Alabama's first safety in a game since former defensive lineman Quinnen Williams was credit with one against Missouri in 2018.

Penalty Problem

The 14 penalties for 99 yards was Alabama's highest total of the season. The previous high was 10 against Texas. 

The crowd noise in front of a huge crowd at Texas A&M had a big effect. Nine of the 14 penalties were pre-snap false starts on the Crimson Tide offense, four of which came on the same drive in the fourth quarter when Alabama was trying to put the game away. 

Saban was obviously frustrated with seeing all the flags, but felt like if Alabama can clean up some if its mistakes it'll be a really hard team to beat. 

"Self-inflicted wounds are going to be something that we can resolve because they're all fixable," Saban said. "And we certainly need to do that if we're going to be able to compete at a high level in the future."

Tide-bits 

Jermaine Burton became the first Alabama receiver with a 100-yard game this season. The 197 total were the most receiving yards for a Crimson Tide receiver since DeVonta Smith went for 215 against Ohio State in the 2021 CFP title game ... Alabama improved to 6-1 at Kyle Field, all under Saban. ...The official attendance was the third-highest in Kyle Field history at 108,101 ... Game captains for Alabama were Malachi Moore, Dallas Turner and Roydell Williams. ... Referee Daniel Gatreaux's crew worked the game.

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