TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Following Wednesday’s practice, Nick Saban joked with reporters that he might let them observe Alabama’s future workouts if they are able to brave the cold front currently hitting Tuscasloosa.
As for No. 8 Alabama’s matchup against No. 13 LSU this weekend, that’s no laughing matter. The Crimson Tide will face one of its toughest tests of the year as it welcomes the Tigers and their top-ranked offense into Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday at 6:45 p.m. CT.
Here’s a transcript of Nick Saban’s final press conference before the matchup as well as my take on his comments.
Opening statement
“The most important thing, I think, in this game is great practice habits, technically work on the things that you need to do to go execute. You know you’re going to play against a good player. They have a lot of good players. You need to know exactly what to do, how to do it, why it’s important to do it that way, so when it comes to the game, you’re not really thinking about it. You can do it automatically. That takes great preparation and focus, and that’s what’s going to help you have success in the game and that’s what guys have to stay focused on. You can’t worry about what anybody else says or thinks or does. You’ve got to worry about what you’ve got to do, and I think that’s the most important thing for our team right now.”
Tony’s take: Earlier this week, Saban pointed out that LSU excels at pre-snap motions and adjustments. The Tigers also have the talent to punish mistakes, especially when they have the ball. It will be essential for Alabama’s defenders to make sure they are lined up in the right spots and know their assignments on every play. The less thinking they have to do while doing that, the more they can focus on stopping LSU’s playmakers.
On LSU head coach Brian Kelly
“Brian Kelly has been a really, really good coach wherever he’s been for a long, long time. He’s smart. They’ve got a great system. offensively. Players are well-coached. They’ve got discipline. They play hard. They play with toughness. They play with great intangibles. He’s got a winning process that has worked at Notre Dame, Cincinnati, every place he’s ever coached. I’ve always had a tremendous amount of respect for him, and I think he’s doing an outstanding job there. They went to the SEC Championship Game last year and got a really, really good team this year. So I think he’s doing an outstanding job.”
Tony’s take: Would Brian Kelly become the new king of the SEC West if LSU beats Alabama this weekend? It would make him 2-for-2 against Saban since taking the LSU job and would also likely see him win the SEC West title for a second straight year.
On Tommy Rees' approach to facing his former coach
“I don’t think anything different. Tommy works hard and tries to do the best he can to help our players to play well in the game. I don’t think in these kinds of games you want to sort of try to – I don’t know what you would call it – do a lot of new stuff because the players need to have confidence in what you’re doing, and they gain confidence in doing that through cumulative reps throughout the course of the season. And if you just make a bunch of changes, they start looking at you like, ‘Don’t you think we can execute what we’ve been doing?’ So I think you’ve got to be a little careful, but I don’t see that happening. I think he’s focused on trying to get our players in the right spots to do the right things that help them have a chance to be successful.”
Tony’s take: First-year Alabama offensive coordinator Tommy Rees is very familiar with Kelly after playing for him and working as an assistant under him at Notre Dame.
Rees was a quarterback on Kelly’s Irish teams from 2010-2013. He then joined his former head coach’s staff as a quarterbacks coach in 2017, serving in that role until being promoted to offensive coordinator in 2020. Now the two will square off on opposite sidelines for the first time.
A lot gets made about these types of reunions, but it doesn’t really provide an advantage one way or the other. Kelly knows what Rees does, and vice versa. Both coaches are too busy trying to implement their game plans to worry about changing things up to fool the other.
On LSU linebacker Harold Perkins
“He makes plays all over the place. This guy’s a really, really good athlete, really good player, very explosive. Sometimes they play him out in the apex. He’s a great blitzer. He can play like Star and reroute people and make plays in the passing game. Sometimes he plays in the box. Sometimes he plays on the edge. He’s got great first-step quickness. He’s a good pass rusher. That’s why he has so many tackles for loss and sacks and things like that. But I think this guy is one of the most dynamic players in our league.”
Tony’s take: The only thing stopping Harold Perkins from leaving for the NFL next year is his age. Unfortunately for Alabama, it will have to deal with the sophomore linebacker this season as well as next year.
On recruiting benefits of having three key games at home in one season?
“I think it’s great for our fans that we have quality opponents that come here and they have an opportunity to cheer our team on. I think the atmosphere and environment that they have created in all of our games this year has been phenomenal. I think it’s gonna be really, really important in this game. I thought it was absolutely as good as it ever gets for the Tennessee game, which I think had an impact on the game, it affected them. I think it’s gonna be important that we have that same kind of atmosphere in this game. But I think it’s exciting for our fans, I know our players love playing in Bryant-Denny Stadium, and big games are always something that we look forward to playing, especially in front of an enthusiastic home crowd.”
Tony’s take: Big-time recruits enjoy attending big-time games, and Alabama has had a ton of those inside Bryant-Denny Stadium this season. Regardless of the outcome of Saturday’s matchup, it will give Alabama the chance to showcase its gameday environment to several of the nation’s elite talents this weekend.
On simulating Harold Perkins in practice
“I don’t think you can simulate it. Players gotta watch the film. If we had someone that could play like him, they’d be playing. So they wouldn’t be on scout team. So we do the best we can, and I think our guys do a really good job, both sides of the ball, trying to give a good look to the defensive players. But it’s hard to simulate. It’s hard to be that deep on your team to be able to simulate.
It’s one of the reasons we go good-on-good some in practice, so now the good guys are playing against the good guys. So hopefully you got somebody playing STAR that is explosive, whether it’s Caleb Downs or Malachi [Moore] or whoever is really fast or quicker and can be challenging. And our players need to understand and respect why we go good-on-good. It’s to help each other get better. Because if you’re going to play against a good player on Saturday, you get a chance to play against a good player in practice — challenge yourself to do things the right way. It helps you get better. But we don’t have somebody here, on scout team, that can simulate what No. 4 does. Because the guy’s a phenomenal player.”
Tony’s take: It’s not just Alabama, no program has a scout-team player who can accurately replicate Perkins in practice. That being said, the Crimson Tide is better equipped than most programs.
Alabama could use five-star freshmen Keon Keeley and Yhonzae Pierre as scout-team replicas for Perkins. That’s not quite the same thing, but it could be one day.
On Alabama playing 60 minutes
“They have to make a choice and a decision to do it. They gotta understand the level of intensity that has to be sustained, a sense of urgency that has to be sustained, and how smart you have to be — which goes back to the preparation that you had — so that you’re not making mental errors because you’re playing smart and you’re playing with good intelligence. So you’ve got immediacy, intensity and intelligence. Those three things, sustained for 60 minutes to a high standard, that’s the challenge. You have to make a choice and a decision to do that. And it doesn't just happen in the game, it’s got to be a habit. If you practice at a high level all the time, you’ll be able to play in the game at a high level all the time. If you don’t do it in practice, and you think you’re going to be able to do it in the game, probably not gonna happen. We keep harping, we keep teaching, every time we get the opportunity to point out to a player, ‘This is an opportunity for you to learn how to sustain better in the game,’ we want to try to do it.”
Tony’s take: I keep saying that Alabama’s inability to put together a full game will end up being its undoing. That might be the case this weekend if the Crimson Tide experiences another one of its sleepy starts.
Alabama can’t afford to dig itself into an early hole against this LSU offense. It also needs to bury the Tigers if given the opportunity to do so.
On Jalen Milroe being more relaxed
“I think it’s a lot to do with confidence. And I think it has to do with experience. Experience is nothing but an accumulation of all the mistakes that we’ve made in the past, right? It’s all of us — me, you guys, everybody. So when you learn from all those things, which Jalen has, and he’s done a really good job of that, and you stay positive, then you start to develop confidence because you start making plays and doing things right on a more consistent basis. And I think that makes you feel good about yourself and it makes you impact other people around you because of the way you carry yourself. I think that’s started to happen, and you know, hopefully we can continue to build on that.”
Tony’s take: By now we’ve all heard Jalen Milroe’s unique high-pitched laugh following Alabama’s win over Tennessee. Don’t be surprised if we hear it more and more moving forward.
The redshirt sophomore appears to be more comfortable both on and off the field and is slowly but surely getting the hang of this starting quarterback thing.
Sure, the process has moved a bit slower than Alabama would have liked. And Milroe has provided a few frustrating moments. However, he’s been pretty good at having the last laugh lately.''
LSU's skill position players?
"They’ve got a lot of good players and I think if you single out one guy, from a skill standpoint, even though No. 8 has been phenomenal all year, so is No. 11. They’ve got some other guys. The tight end is a really good player, the running back is a really good player, the quarterback is a really good player.
"So what it comes down to is everybody has a personal challenge that they have to get their job done, all 11 guys. The guys rushing have to keep the guy in the pocket so he can’t take off running a scramble. The guys covering have got to cover when he scrambles they’ve got to plaster the guy so they don’t give up big plays on a scramble, runs or passes.
“So it takes 11 guys that really are out there doing their jobs on every play at a very high level, because you are going to play against really, really good players and you have to be able to play the next play. It doesn’t matter when you are playing games like this ... to me the most important thing is every team is going to make good plays, and we’re going to make good plays. But we have to be responding on the next play, no matter what happened on the last play. We made a good play, we have to respond on the next play. We gave up a play, we have to respond on the next play. That’s on offense, that’s on defense.
"Going back to Jalen, that’s important for him, too, because we’re not going to have success on every play that we run on offense. But how you respond to those things help you stack some positives. Don’t get frustrated, don’t get down on yourself, keep focusing on the next play. What’s happening now. The next play is the most important thing. Do that one thing for every play for 60 minutes of the game, that’s what everybody has got to do."
Tony's take: This can be summed up into three words — do your job. LSU's long list of playmakers is intimidating, but Alabama will be the nastiest defense the Tigers have faced all season. If Alabama's defenders stick to their roles and uphold their assignments, the Tide has all the tools it needs to slow LSU down.
On if the team has scouting reports on officials
“Yes, we have a scouting report on every crew."
"We let the players know that these guys call holding, these guys call a lot of pass interference — whatever they call. It’s historical background. It’s not a criticism or anything. 'This referee really protects the quarterback.' It’s just a little bit of knowledge of what the history is, and I guess that’s all a scouting report really is, a history. Our officials really try to do a good job. It’s a tough job. I’ve talked about that before. My dad was an official when I was a little kid. I used to go to basketball games and he’d get booed as the referee, and I’d go to baseball games and he was the umpire and people would be yelling and screaming at him. So I have a different kind of respect for what officials do and hard a job it is to do. I know our guys have a lot of pride in what they do and try to do the best job they can."
Tony's take: This doesn't surprise me, as I assume more teams have some kind of a scouting report on the officials they will face during the upcoming game. It's kind of like a pitcher figuring out an umpire's strike zone. It's good to know what might be called more and what you have to be careful about heading into the matchup.
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