Read and watch everything Alabama head coach Nick Saban said on the first day of Texas A&M week.
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Study....there will be a quizz
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Alabama head coach Nick Saban kicked off Week 7 with a noon press conference Monday. Below is everything Saban said on the first day of Texas A&M week.
"I think the No. 1 thing that we need to focus on at this point in the season is our quality of play. And that really starts with the discipline that every player has to make the right choices and decisions relative to what he has to do his job and play winning football. I think obviously the challenges that we have in front of us with Texas A&M who is a top-25 team. Playing on the road is going to take a lot of focus on our part, a lot of discipline on our part, and a lot of guys sort of continuing to elevate their game and play better each week as we go through the season.
"I think A&M has played really really well this year. They have like 12 starters back. Jimbo does a really good job. They play really good on defense. They’re fifth or something in the SEC, give up less than 300 yards a game. Offensively, they’ve got really good receiving corps, good running back. Quarterback Kellen Mond does a really, really good job of executing their offense. He’s very capable of making every throw that he needs to make as well as can make plays with his feet as a runner. Got a good running back. So this is a really good all-around team. They have their specialists back. They’re good on special teams. So this is going to be a very very challenging game for us in every way, shape and form.
"Chris Owens is the only guy who has a little knee problem who may be questionable. He’ll be day-to-day and questionable for the game."
ON PROGRESS OF OFFENSIVE LINE
"I think that the offensive line has done a good job in pass protection, and I think that we’re going to need to continue that as we play against better defensive teams, better rusher. I think the big focus has been to finish blocks, finish plays so that we can finish runs and create the kind of balance that we’d like to have offensively. I think we’ve been pretty good at getting a hat on a hat, but the big emphasis has been to finish the defensive players so we have more positive runs. I’m not disappointed in any way, shape or form with the offensive line and the progress they’ve made, but as every group on our team would say, there are obviously things we can do better."
ON WILL REICHARD (HIP)
"He hasn’t done anything for a couple of weeks, so today will be the first day where he actually will kick a ball. So we’ll evaluate that. That will be day to day. There is competition at the punting position, but it’s difficult to say right now whether he’ll be capable of punting or what exactly his role can be in this game. Maybe he can kick. Maybe he can punt. Or maybe he can kick off. I don’t know at this point and we’ll have to evaluate it through the course of the week."
ON TEXAS A&M QUARTERBACK KELLEN MOND
"He played really well against us last year. So we have a lot of respect for him as a player. I think that his sort of total understanding of what they’re trying to do has enhanced his performance to some degree. I think the same receiver corps pretty much that he had a year ago, I think those guys work well together. They’ve been able to have really good balance on their offense in terms of run-pass. The quarterback runs, although they’re sometimes limited, they hurt us last year in the game and are something you always have to be concerned about."
ON RAEKWON DAVIS
"He has been very good. Has worked hard. Certainly tried to set a good example for some of the young guys that are playing around him. I’ve been pleased with his effort. He was banged up. He had a little shoulder there. He didn’t miss any time. I think that bothered him a little bit in the last game but he should be healthy and ready to go. I think he has played a little more consistently this year than last year."
ON CONTAINING A MOBILE QUARTERBACK
"It’s obviously something that we need to do better. I think it’s player awareness. We certainly try to do those things on a daily basis and try to emphasize those things on a daily basis, but it still comes back to that same word that we talked about earlier. Players have to be disciplined in doing their job. If you’re a contain rusher, you’ve got to contain the quarterback. You can’t be coming underneath. You’ve got to keep the proper leverage on the guy. Give the opportunity to push the pocket in the middle That’s something that we definitely have focused on and need to improve on."
ON IMPROVEMENT OF FRESHMAN DEFENDERS IN BYE WEEK
"I don’t think you can put everybody in a category. I think some guys made improvement who had the right mind-set during the bye week. Other guys, we tried to push to get them to stay focused like they needed to. In some cases, we got improvement. I think there’s three things that happen in a bye week. You either make improvement cause you have the right mind-set, you’re stagnant and you kind of stay the same, or you backslide. I think it’s one of those three things. I don’t think you can categorize everybody and put them in this same category that everybody improved. I think some guys that had the right mindset have improved and some guys probably didn’t get out of it what they could have."
ON TEXAS A&M'S SPECIAL TEAMS
"They’re good on special teams. They’re very well-coached. They’ve got good team speed. Their specialists are both very experienced and very, very good. It’s going to be a challenge for us to...Sometimes when you have a really good punter, it creates opportunities for you, too. So if we get opportunities we’ve got to be able to take advantage of them because we execute wise. Kickoff-wise, I think there’s only been three returns all year cause they kick the ball out of the end zone every time. If we get an opportunity on that, we’ve got to be ready to take advantage of it. I think that’s pretty much the case in all phases of the game. Obviously we need our specialists to perform well in the game so that we have an opportunity to try to control the vertical field position based on our team and how our specialists perform."
