What Nick Saban said about the Gamecocks
The South Carolina Gamecocks will open up Southeastern Conference play this Saturday facing the best team in the league. The Alabama Crimson Tide, led by head coach
Nick Saban, will come to Williams-Brice Stadium for the first time since the 2010 season.
The Gamecocks were able to pull the upset that day over the top-ranked team in the country. They won’t have the same opportunity this year as the Crimson Tide (2-0) are ranked as the second-best team in the polls.
But this is an opportunity for a Saban protégé, South Carolina head coach
Will Muschamp, to knock him off for the first time. Former Saban assistant coaches are 0-16 against their former boss with a combined score of 650 for the Crimson Tide to 220 against all others.
Muschamp has gone against Saban on a pair of occasions - once in his first year as the head coach at Florida and a second time in his final year leading the program. The first time, the Crimson Tide won by 28 points. The second time, it was 21 points.
Going into this year’s game, Saban has a tremendous amount of respect for Muschamp’s Gamecocks.
“This is not an easy place to play,” Saban said on Monday. “We’re going to have to do a great job of getting our guys ready to play certainly their best football game of the season to have success in this kind of environment against this kind of quality football team.”
Below, check out what Saban and several of his players had to say about taking on Muschamp and the South Carolina Gamecocks this weekend at Williams-Brice. Kickoff is set for 3:39 p.m. and will be broadcast on CBS.
OPENING COMMENTS
“I think overall after watching the last game, there were certainly some areas we made some improvements as a team. But I think overall, from start to finish, we didn’t play the way we’d like to play from a consistency standpoint. We just weren’t clean and crisp in some of the things we tried to execute. One of the things you don’t want to create - people see your vulnerabilities regardless of what you’re doing, whether it’s playing offensive line, covering a guy on defense, reading the right things, running the right routes - it really doesn’t matter. Those things get exposed down the road if you don’t get them fixed. That’s certainly something we can take away from this game in terms of our consistency in performance.
“One thing I would like to say is I know it was a difficult day for our fans because of the circumstances surrounding the weather. I’d like to thank the fans for supporting the team and a lot of people hanging in there to try to support the team. I know the players really appreciate it. It was a difficult circumstance for a lot of folks. Hopefully our administration will continue to try to play some of these games at a different time.
“We certainly look forward to the SEC opener this week.
Will Muschamp has done an outstanding job of building a very, very good program at South Carolina. They had a successful season a year ago and are a very well-coached team in every phase of the game. Their guys play hard, and reflect the personality of their coach. This is a good football team.
“They have a lot veteran players coming back - I think 15 starters, including both of their specialists. Their offense is second in the SEC, or whatever, over 500 yards per game. They’re leading the SEC in rushing at 310 yards per game. They have a really good offensive line, have some really good skill players, couple of good wide receivers. I thought the freshman quarterback played flawlessly last week for the first game he’s played in. They do a lot of things on offense that are very difficult to defend.
“Defensively, they’ve got good players, got a good front. Those guys are aggressive and play extremely well.
“This is by far the best special teams group we’ve played, specialists and special teams, certainly this year but ranks right up there with anybody we’ve ever played against.
“This is not an easy place to play. We’re going to have to do a great job of getting our guys ready to play certainly their best football game of the season to have success in this kind of environment against this kind of quality football team.”
ON JAKE BENTLEY TO RYAN HILINSKI …
“Oh, he played great. The guy was like 26-for-30, or whatever (he was 24-for-30) and he had a lot of yards. He certainly didn’t look like a freshman quarterback out there. He’s a good athlete, has a good arm, he was very accurate, made good decisions, got rid of the ball, got the ball out of his hand quickly and executed the offense extremely well.
“No disrespect because we think Bentley is a really good quarterback and certainly an experienced guy, but they didn’t miss a beat in this game in terms of the quarterback position.”
ON THE 2010 LOSS TO SOUTH CAROLINA ...
“What year are we in now? 2019? Most of our guys were in grade school when that happened. But what I remember from it is we got the lining kicked out of our britches. I don’t know if you know what that means, but it means you got your butt kicked so bad, you don’t’ have a seam in the back of your pants. I remember that, but I’ll ask the players today if when they were in sixth grade, if they remember it, but we’ll see.
"If they don’t remember it, I don’t know how it motivates them, but I know this is a tough place to play and we have a lot of respect for the team that we’re playing. I think the players on our team need to have the proper respect in terms of what they need to do to prepare to play a good team like this."
IN WHAT WAYS HAS TUA GROWN MENTALLY?
“Tua has more knowledge and experience of the offense right now and he’s more confident in understanding not only what to do, but why it’s important to do it. He’s got a lot more knowledge of what the defense is trying to do and how they’ll respond and react to certain things. That should help him in his decision-making and judgments.
"I don’t think we were real crisp in the passing game - and I’m not talking about any fault of Tua’s, but sloppy in protection, sloppy in route running, calling seven-man protections and getting too much pressure in the pocket. There’s a lot we need to clean up in the passing game."
WIDE RECEIVER JERRY JEUDY FINDING WAYS TO IMPROVE …
“Jerry has done a good job and been very productive. With all receivers, the constant thing we’re trying to get our guys to do - yeah, we want you to play great when you have the ball, but we also want you to play great when you don’t have the ball.
"I think that’s a general theme we want to get across to all of our guys, because whether it’s a running play or a passing play when you’re not getting the ball where you have to block or convert an RPO to blocking, these things are critical to helping your teammates, no different than when your teammates better do a good job when you get the ball or you won’t have a chance to be successful. Jerry has been pretty good with the ball and as a group, we’d like to improve a little bit when we don’t have the ball."
MORE FROM NICK SABAN ...
Jordan Battle and Daniel Wright on the field …
“I thought those guys both played well. It was an opportunity for them to get some experience, and they did. We sort of rotated guys around back there in the game. I think there were seven or eight guys playing different circumstances in different situations. I wanted to get those guys the chance to play some.”
Assessment of Jaylen Waddle and his punt return style …
“Obviously we had one big return called back because of a very poor decision by a player in terms of block in the back. He’s been very productive. We get a lot of alternative kicks, which takes great judgment on his part as to when do I field the ball, when do I not field the ball, when do I stick it in the middle when it’s a middle return and when do I try to get outside? He’s always done a pretty good job of that. We want to continue to help him improve at his decision-making so we can continue to have the best production possible in this area.
THOUGHTS FROM STAR RECEIVER JERRY JEUDY ...
On being the first SEC game … “We have South Carolina this week, and they’re a great team. We should have the same mindset as we do every other week - just go out there and dominate every opponent.”
On if Nick Saban has said anything from the environment at Williams-Brice … “I didn’t hear anything from him yet, but I heard things from other coaches. They have a loud environment, but we can’t let that distract us from our mission and what our goal is.”
THOUGHTS FROM QUARTERBACK TUA TAGOVAILOA
On going on the road for the first time … “This is what you prepare for is games on the road like this when it’s going to be a hostile environment, it’s going to be hot, it’s going to be hard. This is what we prepare for. Offensively, what we can do is look at the things we can improve on and need to work on and try not to make the same mistakes we made the previous games.”
What were you doing in 2010? … “I think I was in seventh grade, or eighth grade. Seventh grade. The last memory I had, I was playing for a championship when I was that level. But I didn’t really pay attention to college football, as far as the SEC or Alabama. We’re out there on the west coast. We’re just looking at Pac-12 teams. 2010, that was a long time ago. It’s almost 2020.”
THOUGHTS FROM LINEBACKER TERRELL LEWIS ...
On facing a freshman quarterback - do you want to pin your ears back and rush? …“We’ll play it like any other quarterback. I wouldn’t say pin our ears back, because I wouldn’t think they’d want to say, ‘Freshman quarterback, we going to throw the ball, throw the ball.’ So you can’t pin your ears back. You have to stop the run first, then make them have to pass the ball. We definitely are eager to play a freshman quarterback because he hasn’t seen us and just now starting to play, but it’s another quarterback.”