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Nick Saban's press conference
Coach Saban addressed the media at his weekly press conference today. Here are his comments.
Opening comments
I think we did some really good things in this last game at South Carolina. The players played hard. Tough circumstance. Tough game on the road. Offensively, we created a lot of explosive plays. We took care of the ball. Didn’t turn the ball over. Things we can improve on. A couple of times, we didn’t take advantage of opportunities in the red zone. But I think we made significant improvement and I really think that needs to be the focus for our entire team. Defensively, we played well at times but we made some mental errors that allowed them to keep possession of the ball, which is not a good thing. But made some big red area stops that kept them off the board. Got a couple of turnovers. I think there’s a lot of things that we can improve on. And the No. 1 thing is, we made way too many penalties. We shot ourselves in the foot on both sides of the ball, which really hurt.
I thought special teams was a real plus for us in this game. Did a great job in kickoff coverage. Did a pretty good job of negating their return game in every way. I thought that was a positive for us.
I think our focus needs to be on, here’s what we’re doing well, here’s the things we need to improve on. And we really had a good look on that.
But there’s three intangible things that we’ve got to make sure we’re getting from all the players that play, no matter who they are or what team, that you’re playing to the level of toughness, giving the level of effort to the standard that we needed and we’re playing with the discipline that we need to execute. A lot of these penalties that we got in this game were unforced errors, jumping offsides, things like that, critical situations. Not substituting correctly on defense. We cannot put ourselves in those positions. Third and 10 is a whole lot different from third and 5, so you get an offsides or whatever and they hit a big play because you’re playing different types of coverages.
I think we’re playing a team this week that’s a very explosive team in Southern Miss. They score a lot of points. They do a lot of things on offense that obviously they’re in the Top 10 in the country or whatever in pass offense, 347 yards a game. It’s because they’ve got good skill players, they’ve got a good scheme. They dish the ball all over the perimeter and make you play in space all the time, which we need to do a good job of. The quarterback does a good job of executing, Defensively, they’re very active on defense, try to create a lot of stunting and moving. This is one of the most explosive teams that we’ve played on special teams. This returner, No. 2, has a punt return for a touchdown and two kickoff returns for touchdowns already this season. They’re ranked nationally in all those areas. This is not a time for us to be thinking that we don’t have to prepare well and work to focus on the things that we need to do to play well in our preparation for this game. We need to go to work on that.
From an injury standpoint, LaBryan Ray is probably out for sure for this game. We’re doing some further testing to see what the situation is with his foot, but it’s undetermined right now as to how long he may be out.
On developing hand strength for the receivers
I mean, we do a lot of things in the weight room to try to develop strength in all parts of the body and that includes hand strength. Guys have good hands because they have good hands and obviously you want them to use the proper technique in catching the ball, having good hand placement, good hand selection on how you’re going to catch the ball, and look it in and tuck it, which our guys do a pretty good job of. Most of the times when we do have drops, it comes down to one of those things: poor hand selection or you don’t look the ball in. We’re just fortunate that we have some guys that are very explosive and they have very good hands.
On what Slade Bolden's versatility brings to the team
He’s a core special teams guy and has really developed nicely for us. He’s done a really good job in that regard. He also was a high school quarterback who we just thought maybe there’s something that we could utilize him in in short yardage, and he does a good job of that. Every time we play a running quarterback, he’s the scout team quarterback on all these kind of things. Just something we thought we could take advantage of. (He) has done a nice job at receiver as well. We’re pleased with his development.
On adding specialty packages like 'wildcat' during the season
I think you want to feature the players that you have so if you have players that are capable of doing something, we’ll ask him to do it, which Slade can in this case. We usually decide how we want to do short-yardage from week to week, even though you have some specialty thing that can create an advantage, then you obviously want to try to do that in gameplanning. I do think that when you have diversity and players that can do multiple things, whether they’re playing offense, defense or special teams it always enhances your chances of scheming things that can help you be successful.
On the inconsistencies Bama has had in punting
Well, we’ve got to get better execution. I mean, I don’t care which guy’s punted, we have -- the thing about both guys is they’re very capable and they do a really good job of punting in the game. We don’t have anybody else to punt besides one of those two guys or we could go for it on every fourth down, and that’s our options. So, one of those two guys have to punt, or we go for it on fourth down every time. So, how do we approach it differently? We’ve got to get those guys to execute, and they’re capable of executing. And they’ve done a really good job of doing it in practice. We just have not seen it in the game. How you drop the ball is very important to how you punt, and almost every punt we’ve had in a game so far, the guy drops the ball inside, so you’re going to kick the ball low, aight, and not with good placement. So, it’s something that we definitely need to improve on. That would be on the list of things that we need to improve.
On Saban's comfort level playing so many young players up front on defense
Well, I think we’ve got to work hard with those guys to get them to play well. There’s no substitute for experience, there’s no question about that. And we do have a lot of young guys playing in the front seven, but the challenge for us as coaches is to try to teach those guys. And I think if those guys can get really comfortable with the basics and the basic fundamentals, then their ability to adapt in a game or when different things come up, they’re going to be able to adjust. But you really can’t coach experience into players. You can just try to teach them how to do things, and as they get more repetitions, hopefully, they’re going to improve and develop confidence and that’s our goal with each and every one of those guys.
On how Patrick Surtain played and the value of his versatility
Patrick played very well in the game. I think that he does give us some flexibility as to whether we play him at corner or we play him at Star. We have a couple guys that have some diversity in the secondary this year, which is very helpful. But the focus with that group is we didn’t do a great job on the perimeter. We’ve got to do a better job taking on blocks. We’ve got do a better job of getting off blocks. We can’t give up one-for-one on the perimeter. And we’ve got to tackle better. That’s the whole group. And so, that’s something that we need to focus on and improve because we get a lot of those opportunities again this week.
On the plan at Will LB for this game
What’s changed? We’ve got number 8 (Christian Harris) and number 10 (Ale Kaho). There’s no plan right now. We’ll see how guys work out in practice, and if they do well, we’ll play the guy that we think that can do the best job in the game.
On the significance of the mental aspect of field goal kicking
I think it’s critical. I think you’ve got to be able to go in there and focus on that particular shot almost like golf. This guy has to have, as a field goal kicker, to me, you have to have kind of a sniper mentality. You’re going to take one shot, and you’ve got to make that shot work, and you’ve got to be able to stay focused on the basic things that are the benchmarks of what’s going to help you be able to execute the best. Will’s very, very capable. I’m sure he’s disappointed that he missed a field goal, and I’m sure he’s disappointed that he missed an extra point in the last game. He kicked very well the game before, but we’re very confident that as he gets opportunities, he’s going to develop more and more confidence in himself. But he’s very capable, and this is a case where he’s a good hitter. If he misses a couple and strikes out, we’re just going to have to stay with him and keep supporting him because he’s very capable.
Coach Saban addressed the media at his weekly press conference today. Here are his comments.
Opening comments
I think we did some really good things in this last game at South Carolina. The players played hard. Tough circumstance. Tough game on the road. Offensively, we created a lot of explosive plays. We took care of the ball. Didn’t turn the ball over. Things we can improve on. A couple of times, we didn’t take advantage of opportunities in the red zone. But I think we made significant improvement and I really think that needs to be the focus for our entire team. Defensively, we played well at times but we made some mental errors that allowed them to keep possession of the ball, which is not a good thing. But made some big red area stops that kept them off the board. Got a couple of turnovers. I think there’s a lot of things that we can improve on. And the No. 1 thing is, we made way too many penalties. We shot ourselves in the foot on both sides of the ball, which really hurt.
I thought special teams was a real plus for us in this game. Did a great job in kickoff coverage. Did a pretty good job of negating their return game in every way. I thought that was a positive for us.
I think our focus needs to be on, here’s what we’re doing well, here’s the things we need to improve on. And we really had a good look on that.
But there’s three intangible things that we’ve got to make sure we’re getting from all the players that play, no matter who they are or what team, that you’re playing to the level of toughness, giving the level of effort to the standard that we needed and we’re playing with the discipline that we need to execute. A lot of these penalties that we got in this game were unforced errors, jumping offsides, things like that, critical situations. Not substituting correctly on defense. We cannot put ourselves in those positions. Third and 10 is a whole lot different from third and 5, so you get an offsides or whatever and they hit a big play because you’re playing different types of coverages.
I think we’re playing a team this week that’s a very explosive team in Southern Miss. They score a lot of points. They do a lot of things on offense that obviously they’re in the Top 10 in the country or whatever in pass offense, 347 yards a game. It’s because they’ve got good skill players, they’ve got a good scheme. They dish the ball all over the perimeter and make you play in space all the time, which we need to do a good job of. The quarterback does a good job of executing, Defensively, they’re very active on defense, try to create a lot of stunting and moving. This is one of the most explosive teams that we’ve played on special teams. This returner, No. 2, has a punt return for a touchdown and two kickoff returns for touchdowns already this season. They’re ranked nationally in all those areas. This is not a time for us to be thinking that we don’t have to prepare well and work to focus on the things that we need to do to play well in our preparation for this game. We need to go to work on that.
From an injury standpoint, LaBryan Ray is probably out for sure for this game. We’re doing some further testing to see what the situation is with his foot, but it’s undetermined right now as to how long he may be out.
On developing hand strength for the receivers
I mean, we do a lot of things in the weight room to try to develop strength in all parts of the body and that includes hand strength. Guys have good hands because they have good hands and obviously you want them to use the proper technique in catching the ball, having good hand placement, good hand selection on how you’re going to catch the ball, and look it in and tuck it, which our guys do a pretty good job of. Most of the times when we do have drops, it comes down to one of those things: poor hand selection or you don’t look the ball in. We’re just fortunate that we have some guys that are very explosive and they have very good hands.
On what Slade Bolden's versatility brings to the team
He’s a core special teams guy and has really developed nicely for us. He’s done a really good job in that regard. He also was a high school quarterback who we just thought maybe there’s something that we could utilize him in in short yardage, and he does a good job of that. Every time we play a running quarterback, he’s the scout team quarterback on all these kind of things. Just something we thought we could take advantage of. (He) has done a nice job at receiver as well. We’re pleased with his development.
On adding specialty packages like 'wildcat' during the season
I think you want to feature the players that you have so if you have players that are capable of doing something, we’ll ask him to do it, which Slade can in this case. We usually decide how we want to do short-yardage from week to week, even though you have some specialty thing that can create an advantage, then you obviously want to try to do that in gameplanning. I do think that when you have diversity and players that can do multiple things, whether they’re playing offense, defense or special teams it always enhances your chances of scheming things that can help you be successful.
On the inconsistencies Bama has had in punting
Well, we’ve got to get better execution. I mean, I don’t care which guy’s punted, we have -- the thing about both guys is they’re very capable and they do a really good job of punting in the game. We don’t have anybody else to punt besides one of those two guys or we could go for it on every fourth down, and that’s our options. So, one of those two guys have to punt, or we go for it on fourth down every time. So, how do we approach it differently? We’ve got to get those guys to execute, and they’re capable of executing. And they’ve done a really good job of doing it in practice. We just have not seen it in the game. How you drop the ball is very important to how you punt, and almost every punt we’ve had in a game so far, the guy drops the ball inside, so you’re going to kick the ball low, aight, and not with good placement. So, it’s something that we definitely need to improve on. That would be on the list of things that we need to improve.
On Saban's comfort level playing so many young players up front on defense
Well, I think we’ve got to work hard with those guys to get them to play well. There’s no substitute for experience, there’s no question about that. And we do have a lot of young guys playing in the front seven, but the challenge for us as coaches is to try to teach those guys. And I think if those guys can get really comfortable with the basics and the basic fundamentals, then their ability to adapt in a game or when different things come up, they’re going to be able to adjust. But you really can’t coach experience into players. You can just try to teach them how to do things, and as they get more repetitions, hopefully, they’re going to improve and develop confidence and that’s our goal with each and every one of those guys.
On how Patrick Surtain played and the value of his versatility
Patrick played very well in the game. I think that he does give us some flexibility as to whether we play him at corner or we play him at Star. We have a couple guys that have some diversity in the secondary this year, which is very helpful. But the focus with that group is we didn’t do a great job on the perimeter. We’ve got to do a better job taking on blocks. We’ve got do a better job of getting off blocks. We can’t give up one-for-one on the perimeter. And we’ve got to tackle better. That’s the whole group. And so, that’s something that we need to focus on and improve because we get a lot of those opportunities again this week.
On the plan at Will LB for this game
What’s changed? We’ve got number 8 (Christian Harris) and number 10 (Ale Kaho). There’s no plan right now. We’ll see how guys work out in practice, and if they do well, we’ll play the guy that we think that can do the best job in the game.
On the significance of the mental aspect of field goal kicking
I think it’s critical. I think you’ve got to be able to go in there and focus on that particular shot almost like golf. This guy has to have, as a field goal kicker, to me, you have to have kind of a sniper mentality. You’re going to take one shot, and you’ve got to make that shot work, and you’ve got to be able to stay focused on the basic things that are the benchmarks of what’s going to help you be able to execute the best. Will’s very, very capable. I’m sure he’s disappointed that he missed a field goal, and I’m sure he’s disappointed that he missed an extra point in the last game. He kicked very well the game before, but we’re very confident that as he gets opportunities, he’s going to develop more and more confidence in himself. But he’s very capable, and this is a case where he’s a good hitter. If he misses a couple and strikes out, we’re just going to have to stay with him and keep supporting him because he’s very capable.
