Good lord, if Saban is telling them to cool it a lil until the game u know them boys is HITTING.
Just as an anecdotal story about this philosophy.
My HS Sr. year we hit a lot in Summer camp. Over about a four day period we lost a starting TE and a starting OLB to broken collar bones and had a FB and DT suffer concussions from all the hard hits.
Our coaches decided at that point to dial things back and we went to something like the 'thud' rules Saban has in place - only moreso. The last week of camp and the week of the first game we practiced in helmets, tee-shirts, and shorts. NO contact at all.
On the opening kickoff of the first game we were so pent-up looking for contact we were caged animals. By the end of the first quarter, our opponents had abject fear in their eyes.
On one play, the other team ran an option play and our OLB forgot which back was his responsibility. Having been told by our coaches that if you do not know who to hit, hit the guy nearest you with all you have. So, while the ball was given to a dive back, this LBer hit the unsuspecting pitch man so hard you could later see on tape players heads turn and look to see what the heck happened over there.
I suspect every time the rest of the game one of their backs was the pitch man on that option play he had one eye on the ball and another on that LBer.
Sometime, withholding contact only makes you crave it more.