| FTBL snippets from Saban's conference call yesterday

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Opening statement:

Good win. Anytime you win an SEC game you have to be happy. Played really well in the first half. Did not maintain intensity and it showed in the (second half) performance. Tried to give other players opportunities to play in second half.

The first game tells who you are and where you are and what you need to do to get better. Hopefully, a lot of players will make improvement.

Texas A&M is a very good team. Jimbo Fisher has done a good job. They have 16 starters back. They have very good players. A good quarterback (Kellen Mond) with a lot of experience. The offensive line has four of five starters back. Seven or eight starters back on defense. This will be a much more challenging game. It's going to be necessary to make significant improvement and to play for 60 minutes.

On Jaylen Waddle's being fun to watch:

He's fun to watch, for sure. The big thing (improvement-wise), Jaylen has expanded his role. He can play all the receiver positions. He was primarily a slot guy, but he can now make plays from anywhere on the field.

On Will Reichard's status health-wise and his possibility kicking off:

Will has done a great job. He's one-hundred percent. No issues. Will could kick voff. But as long as the other guys (Chase Allen vs Missouri) are efficient, we'll continue do that.

On the defensive performance:

Played pretty well in the first half. Second half not as well. (Because of Missouri's offense) there were a lot of formation adjustments, multiples to adjust to and there were some mental errors because of that, and some were costly. Stopped the run fairly well. Probably made more errors in the passing game. But guys played hard. Played with a lot of toughness. Missed a few tackles in the secondary, but none of them because of a lack of aggressiveness.

Saban said he was encouraged by the defensive performance.

On Mac Jones in the pocket:

Mac is pretty instinctive. He doesn't look at the rush. He keeps his eyes downfield. He has a good feel in the pocket of how to move and create lanes to throw the ball and avoid the rush. He keeps two hands on the ball, which is really important. He has a really good grasp of the offense, so he has a good expectation of where receivers are going to be. He only made maybe one bad read or misread in the game. The rest of the time he was pretty much on point.

On the atmosphere of the game with a limited number of fans:

It was different. But still played well in the first half. Played with a lot of toughness. Controlled the line of scrimmage. Flying around on defense. So the fact that (few) fans were there didn't really have any impact on that. But didn't play with intensity in the second half and there were the same amount of fans and the same amount of noise.

We talked about this last week. What is your DNA as a competitor? You can't count on external factors like the crowd and the noise and the band and lot of those things that can appeal to your emotion when you're playing in a game. You can't really count on that. The atmosphere (at Bryant Denny Stadium) relative to the amount of people at the game will be good. But players can't count on that, can't rely on external factors to get you going.

On the running game in the second half with Brian Robinson and Trey Sanders:

It wasn't nearly as good. Had a couple of (backup) offensive linemen in there. Trey didn't have a lot of opportunity. But the experience will do him well. Didn’t handle Missouri's front well when some of the starting offensive linemen came out. That contributed to it as well. The pocket wasn't as solid when Bryce (Young) was in there. These are all things to learn from.

On Missouri's defensive front:

Missouri has a good front seven. They're physical. They play hard. They play an eight man almost every snap. They're not easy to run against. The running game was solid for the first half. Not as good as it needs to be in the second half.
 
I did not see the A&M vs Vandy game so not really sure what happened and why they only scored 17 points. My belief is they will be a tougher out than Mizzou. Mond has experience and will make some plays.
 
I did not see the A&M vs Vandy game so not really sure what happened and why they only scored 17 points. My belief is they will be a tougher out than Mizzou. Mond has experience and will make some plays.

I feel like the last number of years,even under Sumlin they started off slow while playing inferior teams like Lamar close before eventually win it going away and get stronger through the season. I don't think we have any issues with them, but they gotta be better than 17-12 over Vanderbilt.
 
Mond has all of the ability to be the best in the SEC, but he is just inconsistent. As a senior, he should have grown and be more consistent, but he is not. nothing has changed since his Freshman year in what you expect of him on gameday.
 
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