What Nick Saban Said on Wednesday of Tennessee Week
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama head coach Nick Saban met with reporters on Wednesday evening ahead of the Crimson Tide's matchup against No. 17 Tennessee on Saturday afternoon at Bryant-Denny Stadium.
Here's a full transcript of the media availability:
Opening Statement
"I guess what we all do is, we want to be successful. I think success is probably defined by how consistent you can be, in terms of the way you perform, no matter what it is that you’re trying to perform. Two things enhance that — you have to have knowledge and you have to have belief, and sometimes, it’s difficult to develop that knowledge because you have to go through some hard lessons of learning and growing to develop that. It’s a big part of preparation, and you have to invest a lot of time."
"The other part of that is relationships and caring enough to communicate, because you’re confident in what you’re doing because you have the knowledge, and now you communicate it. The relationships that you have with other people on the team can actually help you feel good about communicating, and that helps everybody play smarter. That helps everybody play better. I guess that’s what you continue to strive for — for players, for your team, for individuals — so we can get the kind of consistency in performance that will help us be successful. That’s a challenge every week. It’s a challenge every day. Hopefully people are motivated to do that and are doing the best they can to make the progress we need to make to try to improve."
Malachi Moore, CJ Dippre injuries?
"Both guys have practiced. If they continue to progress like they have, they have a good chance to play, but nobody can predict that right now."
Seeing benefits of the fourth-quarter program?
"Yeah, I see the benefit of it when we play well in the second half, like we did against Ole Miss, or play well in the second half, like we did at Texas A&M. I don’t see the benefit of it when we lose our intensity like we did in the last game, and we don’t play well in the second half and don’t beat the other team in the second half. That may be a little more psychological than it is physical. But I do think that eight games in a row is a grind, psychologically and physically, for everybody. This is the hump time of the season. You either have the mental toughness to be able to sustain it and get over the hump, or you don’t. Hopefully we’ve got enough guys on our team that have enough mental toughness that they’ll be able to do that for another week, then the bye week gets everybody a little freshened up."
Do you think your offense could utilize up-tempo?
"Well, I think when you go up-tempo, you only get a rhythm if the up-tempo is helping you have successful plays. But the successful plays still come from execution. What is your footwork? What is your hand placement? How does the back press the hole? What’s the quarterback read? I mean, it’s a whole myriad of things. Do we block the right guys on the perimeter? All these things make plays successful. So when you have successful plays and you can stack them back-to-back, and you go with tempo, I think that really puts the defense on their heels. When you go up-tempo and the play doesn’t work — that doesn’t help. So, it still all comes back to fundamental execution. When everybody fundamentally executes, then you have a much better chance to have successful plays, and have consistency in what you’re doing. So if you can go fast and do that, I think it can put the defense on its heels. But the first thing you gotta do is execute."
Terrence Ferguson II?
"He’s doing better, he’s practicing every week. I think he’s getting better every week. I think he’s closer to probably 100 percent this week than he has been. Those high-ankle sprains are not easy to, sort of, get over. It takes a little while to develop the ability to push off and have explosive power, which it’s hard to play on the offensive line if you don’t have that. He’s worked his tail off to get where he is, and he’s really worked hard in practice and gone through a lot to get back to where he is. But I think he’s getting pretty close to where we need him to be."
In the DB room, is Caleb Downs the most like you?
"Well, you can ask Terrion what his opinion is about a lot of things. I like Terrion, he’s got a great personality. I don’t evaluate the personalities of the players in the room. I like Caleb Downs, I think he’s got a lot of good characteristics as a person. He’s got great competitive attitude about how he goes about things, how he prepares. He’s very serious, he pays attention to detail, really has a lot of pride in performance. I don’t know if anybody can say that about me, so I’m not comparing myself to him at all. But I like the intangibles he plays with and that he has as a person."
Kool-Aid — a leader in the DB room?
"You know, he’s done a good job. He has a lot of confidence in what he’s supposed to do and I think he’s starting to see the importance of how influencing other people can actually create value for himself. But that’s a little harder to do at corner than it is when you’re playing safety or star, because you’re in the middle of things and you’re making calls. But he’s done a good job of that."
