What Nick Saban Said After Alabama's 17-3 Victory over USF
Full Transcript of Nick Saban's Postgame Press Conference
Opening Statement
"So I'm really proud of our players, the way they competed in the game. This was obviously a tough game. I thought the defense did an outstanding job of only giving up three points and that was after a turnover that gave them good field position. A lot of guys really played well and pressured the quarterback pretty well, didn't give up a lot of explosive plays, so kept them off the board. I know that we struggled a little bit on offense. We ran fairly well, much better in the second half than we did the first, but I'm really proud of our players for the way they competed in the game. I need to do a better job of getting them ready to play in games like this. We were a little flat in the beginning, but after the rain delay I thought we competed better in the game. I want our players to be happy about the fact that they won and enjoy it for 24 hours.
"I know we got the SEC coming up next week and obviously we have a lot of things to fix and we'll work on it. We've actually had four touchdowns negated this year because of penalties. Kickoff return today, touchdown run today, two last week. So all these things add up to how much consistency and how well do you play? How many points do you score? So we need to fix all those things. We're certainly going to work on it.
"I know you're going to ask me about quarterbacks, but we're going to evaluate the quarterbacks that played today. Evaluate Jalen Milroe in terms of how he played and decide this week who gives us the best opportunity to be successful as an offensive team and that's the way we'll go. I'm proud of our players. I'm proud of the way they competed in the game. Talk about having your back against the wall quite a bit. Guys came through when they needed to. It was a great drive - with 6:29 to go in the game I challenged the offensive line. I said, 'don't give them the ball back, take the clock and the game.' That's exactly what they did and I thought they dominated the line of scrimmage. We got into some close formations because they were giving us so much edge pressure and giving us negative plays.
"We had a couple guys miss the game today. Jaheim Oatis had an ankle injury, he should be ok. K-Law was sick, so he actually didn't even make the trip, very sick, but I think he'll be ok and Booker didn't play. Book's kind of the leader on the offensive line. He certainly helps 74 play better because he plays beside him, makes all the calls. I think 74 has a lot more confidence when he's in there. So hopefully we'll get him back next week as well.
Why did Tyler Booker miss the game?
"He had some back spasms."
Why did you choose to play Tyler Buchner and Ty Simpson but not play Jalen Milroe?
"Well, you know, I think that's an internal team thing. I think everybody has the opportunity to respond in the right way when things don't go exactly like you want them to. We played the guys that practiced the best all week long."
How do you evaluate the offensive line?
"Well how many sacks did they have? Based on that I wouldn't evaluate it very well. Some of them were mental errors. We knew they were going to pressure a lot. They've got a really good pressure package. We messed up the protections several times. We got beat a couple times. We need to get that fixed because that was an area that's been a consistent problem for us all year. Last week with the sacks, this week with the sacks. You know, those are drive killers and we've got to eliminate that."
How'd you feel Ty Simpson played?
"I thought he did OK. He made a couple really good throws. We missed a couple big play throws that - you know, we've been making some of those, but I thought he played well. He managed the game well. We ran the ball quite a bit when he was in there. I don't think the sacks were necessarily his fault, so we'll evaluate it when we watch the film."
Were you trying to draw them offsides at the end or were you going to run a play?
"What do you think?"
I think you were trying to draw them.
"Yeah, we were going to kick the field goal. I mean, you had to get up two scores in the game, so...."
Overall, what are you most proud of with your team today?
"The way they competed in the game. They didn't play great. They had a lot of adversity to overcome. They kept answering the bell when we needed to do it. Special teams changed field position quite a bit. James with his punting was outstanding. We had a couple others we could have got down if the gunners would have done a good job. When you lose players, like K-Law and Terrion Arnold is usually the gunners, I don't like for starters to play on more that two special teams. So he wasn't a gunner, K-Law wasn't a gunner and those guys are really good at downing the ball, catching the ball. So we've got two new gunners in there. That's the cumulative effect sometimes when you start to lose players, the next guy's got to step up. We didn't execute great, so I don't feel great about that, but the way we competed in the game was, I think, outstanding."
How big was the defense on fourth down tonight?
"You know, if you go for it on fourth down, they went for it six times and only converted two, that's like four turnovers. So we got two turnovers, and another turnover when we got a penalty. So, I think it was huge, especially field position."
Dallas Turner and edge rusher's play?
"I think we had a lot better pressure in the game. We thought they would go fast. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't and maybe we could have subbed on third down. But our whole plan thinking that they would go fast was to play with the guys that we had in the game. So we actually played 41 and 15, sort of as the defensive ends and two guys, two athletic guys inside. So that's how we thought we had to play on third down, that's how we played the whole game. The guys did a pretty good job on third down too. I think they were like 5-of-17 or something, which is a pretty good job of getting off the field."
How about Jalen Milroe supporting the guys?
"Yeah, he did a great job. He really has been supportive of his teammates. I was happy to see that. Hopefully we'll all learn lessons from the experiences that we have and move forward in a positive way."
Did USF do anything different on defense than you saw on film?
"They have probably as exotic a pressure package as anybody that we play against. And they do a really good job executing it. I don't think they did anything different. It's just that there's so many multiples that you've got to change protections and slide protections in different ways and recognize how to do that. I thought we did a good job in practice of handling it but we didn't do a good job in the game a couple of times of handling it."
See Also:
No. 10 Alabama Pulls Away Late From USF For Uncomfortable 17-3 Win
