🏈 "Saturday Scrimmage ‘Little’ Different" —(most important scrimmage of the year and the one follow up

[TerryP]

But that doesn’t mean camp is over.

“Camp doesn’t end until camp ends,” Alabama Coach Nick Saban said Thurdsay. “And camp doesn’t end until school starts. School doesn’t really start until next week, so we’ll continue with our meetings and all the things that we do.”

One of those things is the second and final scrimmage of the year at Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday.

The Tide coach said there would be a “little preparation” for the scrimmage. He said the scrimmage “might be a little more game-like in terms of sideline organization so players have a little more knowledge of what to expect when the real game comes, but really, not a lot different.”

Not only is camp still under way, Saban said, “I think that this is always the most difficult week in camp, but it’s also the most important week in camp because the focus is really on improvement. Whether it’s technique, assignments – so that we don’t make mental errors – whether we can improve in our ability to execute, be responsible, do your job, understand your role better, continue your development as a player. But it also happens at a time when a guy is probably most challenged in terms of how he feels physically, whatever.

“Really, you’ve got to do the right thing, the right way, the right time, all the time, no matter how you feel, no matter what you do. And every time you feel like you can’t go any more, or you’re tired, you’re hurt or you’re sore, you’ve got to be able to say ‘no.’ You’ve got to say ‘no.’

“When you’re not going to do the right thing you’ve got to say ‘no.’ Anybody out there doing anything, I don’t care what it is – driving too fast – just say ‘no.’ Same thing with this. No different. You’ve got to make yourself keep going. You can’t give in to it.

“That’s how you push yourself. That’s how you get better. You can’t be a player that’s worried about, “Oh, I might not be ready for the first game.’ We’ve always done a pretty good job here of giving players enough time off to recover and get ready for the first game.

“What our focus needs to be on right now is what we need to do to improve – focus, finish plays, eliminate mental errors.

“We’ve been trying to expose our players to a lot of different game situations at the end of every practice so that they learn how to manage those. Because no matter how many times you do them, seems like there’s always something that comes up that you’re not ready for.”

Bamamag preview by McNair...

 

[Crimson&WhiteGecko]

I remember reading comments from DJ Hall over the course of his final season in 2007 when CNS started & they alluded to the effect that he didn't think that there was a need to do all of these game time simulations at the end of practice & how at the end of the year he wish he had believed the 'process' more (ironically he was only signed as a free agent)... this was quite an impressionable moment for me as a fan, I wonder how much it impacts players. Especially the highly touted players that are not used to the details of the game.