What Nick Saban Said on Wednesday of Mississippi State Week
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama head coach Nick Saban met with reporters on Wednesday evening ahead of the Crimson Tide's matchup against Mississippi State on Saturday night at Davis Wade Stadium in Starkville.
Here's a full transcript of the media availability:
Opening Statement
"I think it’s really important that our players have the right mindset going into this game. Play with the right energy level, have the right focus to execute and play to a very high standard against a very challenging team, playing on the road in the SEC. These guys are very aggressive. They’re very physical. They’ve got an aggressive style on defense, lots of pressures, lots of challenges for the offense. They’ve got really good players, good running back, good quarterback, good receivers on offense. So attention to detail is going to be really important for us."
"It’s like I said on Monday to the players, when you look at the film and things work and we do it right, why was it right? And then when it doesn’t work, why didn’t work? And most of the time, it’s something to do with us. Something to do with our execution, our fundamentals, our fundamental discipline, our eye high control, and whether it’s blocking, tackling, turning the ball blower, whatever, making good plays, making bad plays. So then you say to yourself, what if? What if I had the right sense of urgency? What if I had the right discipline? What if I had the right focus in practice to create the right habits? Because after the fact, you can only say, only if and regret that you didn’t do everything you can do to get ready to play. So our players have been pretty good this week, and we need to continue to do that and clean up some things so that we go over there with a lot of confidence in what we need to do to win."
Jalen Milroe’s run threat forcing defenses to play zone?
"Well, I think that’s one way to look at it. I think because of his ability to run, sometimes people run three guys and spy a guy. Sometimes they rush four guys and spy a guy. So that should be helpful in terms of us being able to protect better. I think when people play man-to-man and everybody turns their back, there’s opportunities to make plays if you can beat them one-on-one. But there’s also opportunities to take off. So everybody’s gonna have a different philosophy of how they want to play when it comes to how do we control the quarterback. Some may even say we’ll just rush five or six guys and make him be a passer. So you never know how a team is going to approach that, and we could see various things throughout the course of the year."
Wide receivers through four games?
"I would say [they've] played well at times, but need more consistency. We need to develop confidence in terms of playing together — quarterback, receiver. You're supposed to sit down if it's zone, I sit down, you drift in a zone and it's 3rd and 5 and now the ball comes out because a quarterback thinks you're sitting and now you're punting instead of getting first down. So I think all those little things and those details, I say this all the time but might be the most overused attention to detail term in the building that can make things work or not work."
"I think we need to pay more attention to detail in that togetherness of how we execute in the passing game whether it's protection, where the quarterback reads, whether it's route running, the whole thing. If we can continue to make a lot of progress, and I'm not disappointed with the way that guys play — they've made some great plays. But I think that consistency would be helpful."
Health update on Deontae Lawson and Terrence Ferguson II?
"Both guys were unable to practice today so that will put them in a category of very questionable."
Jaheim Oatis' growth?
"Jaheim Oatis has been great. Our plan for every player is to develop them, help them build and grow to be the best player they can be. Now some players really buy into it and do all the things that they need to do to do it, and Jaheim's a guy that's done that: got himself in better shape, can move better and can rush the passer better. He's got more versatility as a player whether he plays five technique, nose, two technique, three technique. He's done everything we've asked him to do and I think his quality of improvement and his play and consistency has been really outstanding."
Depth at defensive line? How do you feel they’ve been playing?
"I think there’s quite a few guys on the defensive line that have made some contributions and continue to make contributions. I think we have some really good young players at defensive line. We need to get those guys to understand what it takes to play at a high level and get game-ready, in terms of preparation, how to practice, how to really understand the game plan, understand what the other team’s trying to do. But I’m encouraged by the progress that they’ve made. But I think that’s the number one thing the young guys need to be working on and focusing on."
Assess the performance of Elijah Pritchett and Kadyn Proctor during practice this week? Is the plan to get them both reps?
"Well you know, with other injuries on the offensive line, we’re moving guys around and we haven't made an assessment yet because today’s the only real practice — yesterday and I haven’t watched the practice film today. So we’ll make those evaluations on Thursday and Friday as to how we’re going to play guys in the game."
Have you been approached by any prospects about NIL money?
"Not that I know of. I don’t know of anybody that has asked us for that. But look, name, image and likeness is not really name, image and likeness. I think we all understand what it’s become and what we allowed it to become. I said long ago, and got very criticized, is this what we want college football to become? So, it’s becoming what it’s becoming. And that’s OK. I mean, we’ll just adapt and do what we have to do to compete, whatever the circumstances are. Do I think that it would be judicious to have some guardrails on some things? I think you can figure that one out just as well as anybody else."
