It wasnāt pretty, but Alabama avoided an embarrassing upset Saturday with a 17-3 victory over South Florida. Following the game, Nick Saban spoke about his team, stating he was really proud of the way his players competed. Hereās a transcript of what the head coach said as well as my takes on his comments.
Opening statement
āIām really proud of our players for the way they competed in the game. This was obviously a tough game, and I thought the defense did an outstanding job of only giving up three points, and that was after a turnover. They gave them good field position, so a lot of guys really played well, pressured the quarterback pretty well, didnāt give up a lot of explosive plays and kept them off the board.
āI know that we struggled a little bit on offense. We ran the ball fairly well, much better in the second half than we did the first. But Iām really proud of our players for the way they competed in the game. I need to do a better job of getting them ready to play in games like this. We were a little flat in the beginning, but after the rain delay, I thought we competed better in the game. I want our players to be happy about the fact that they won and enjoy it for 24 hours. I know weāve got the SEC coming up next week, and obviously, weāve got a lot of things to fix and weāll work on it.
āWeāve actually had four touchdowns negated this year because of penalties ā a kickoff return today, a touchdown run today, two last week. So all these things add up to just how much consistency and how well do you play, how many points do you score. We need to fix all those things, and weāre certainly gonna work on it.
āI know youāre gonna ask me about quarterbacks, but weāre gonna evaluate the quarterbacks that played today and evaluate Jalen Milroe in terms of how he played and decide this week who gives the best opportunity to be successful as an offensive team. And thatās the way weāll go.
āBut Iām proud of our players. Iām proud of the way they competed in the game. You talk about having your back against the wall quite a bit, and guys came through when they needed to. It was a great drive with 6:29 to go in the game. I challenged the offensive line and said, āDonāt give them the ball back. Take the clock and the game,ā and thatās exactly what they did. We got in some close formations because they were giving us so much edge pressure and giving us negative plays.
Tonyās take: It wasnāt surprising to see Saban take a positive approach after the game. The head coach is often more subdued and supportive of his players after performances like this because he knows they are aware of their mistakes and will hear about them over the next few days. As bad as Alabama looked at times, it did record a two-touchdown win on the road while keeping its opponent out of the end zone. That deserves a brief 24-hour celebration period before a crucial week of correction heading into SEC play.
Injury report
āWe had a couple guys miss the game today. Jaheim Oatis had an ankle injury, so he should be OK. (Kendrick Law) was sick, so he actually didnāt even make the trip. Very sick, but I think heāll be OK. And (Tyler) Booker didnāt play. And Bookās kind of the leader of the offensive line. He certainly helps (Kadyn Proctor) play better because he plays beside of him, makes him all the calls, and I think 74 has a lot more confidence when heās in there. So hopefully, weāll get him back next week, as well.ā
Tonyās take: It sounds like none of these injuries will be long-term setbacks.
Booker appeared to be a late scratch. The starting offensive lineman participated in drills with the first team unit during pregame warmups and was even one of the three captains for the game. He was replaced by Terrence Ferguson at left guard.
Meanwhile, Oatis was replaced by Tim Smith on Alabamaās starting defensive line. Smith finished the game with nine tackles, including four solo stops.
On playing Tyler Buchner and Ty Simpson but not Jalen Milroe
āI think thatās an internal team thing. I think that everybody has the opportunity to respond in the right way when things donāt go exactly like you want them to, and we played the guys that practiced the best all week long.ā
Tonyās take: This was a puzzling decision to me. If Saban had confidence in Milroe to play the entirety of the Week 2 loss to Texas, why didnāt the redshirt sophomore get at least one series when Alabama was struggling against USF?
It doesnāt appear to be an attitude thing as Milroe looked extremely supportive of his teammates, celebrating with them after big plays. Perhaps he just had a terrible week of practice and fell behind Buchner and Simpson in what is still a close quarterback competition. Regardless, Iām even more confused about where Alabama stands at the quarterback position than I was heading into the season.
On the offensive line
āWell, how many sacks did they have? Based on that, I wouldnāt evaluate it very well. Some of them were mental errors. We knew they were gonna pressure a lot. Theyāve got a really good pressure package. We messed up the protections several times. We got beat a couple times. So we need to get that fixed because thatās been an area that has been a consistent problem for us all year ā last week with the sacks, this week with the sacks. And those are drive-killers, and weāve gotta eliminate that.ā
Tonyās take: To answer Sabanās question, Alabama gave up five sacks against USF. That was after giving up five to Texas the previous week. Through three games, the Crimson Tide ranks tied for 126th out of 133 Division I teams, allowing 4.0 sacks per game. If that doesnāt change during SEC play, it will likely be a long season regardless of who is behind center.
On Ty Simpson
āI thought he did OK. He made a couple really good throws and we missed a couple big-play throws that weāve been making some of those. But I thought he played well. He managed the game well. We ran the ball quite a bit when he was in there. I donāt think the sacks were necessarily his fault. Weāll evaluate when we watch the film.ā
Tonyās take: When he wasnāt knocked to the ground or running for his life, Simpson did a solid job of managing the offense. After defensive pressure caused incompletions on his first four passes, he finished the game with five straight completions for 73 yards. He also had a nice 10-yard run and punched in Alabamaās game-clinching touchdown on a quarterback keeper from a yard out in the final minute.
Simpson could use more help from his offensive line and will need to get the ball out of his hands faster moving forward. However, his performance Saturday did show some signs of promise.
On if he was trying to draw USF offsides or run a play late in the game
āWhat do you think? Yeah, we were gonna kick the field goal. I mean, you had to get up two scores in the game.ā
Tonyās take: During its final possession, Alabama drew USF offsides on a fourth-and-2 from the Bulls 21 yard line with less than two minutes to play. That went exactly according to plan for the Crimson Tide as it was never going to snap the ball.
Had USF stayed onside, Saban would have called a timeout and sent kicker Will Reichard on for a roughly 38-yard field goal attempt to give Alabama a two-possession lead. Instead, the Tide picked up a first down and was able to take more time off the clock before finding the end zone.
On what he was proud of
āThe way they competed in the game. They didnāt play great, had a lot of adversity to overcome and kept answering the bell when we needed to do it. Special teams changed field position quite a bit. James with his punting was outstanding. We had a couple others that we could have got down if the gunners would have done a good job. But when you lose players like K-Law and Terrion Arnold are usually the gunners. Well, I donāt like for starters to play on more than two special teams, so he wasnāt a gunner, K-Law wasnāt a gunner and those guys are really good at downing the ball, catching the ball. So weāve got two new gunners in there, but thatās the cumulative effect sometimes when you start to lose players, the next guyās got to step up. But we didnāt execute great, so I donāt feel great about that. But the way we competed in the game was, I think, outstanding.ā
Tonyās take: To Alabamaās credit, it dealt with a 54-minute lightning delay and the loss of two starters on the road while coming away with a victory. As Saban pointed out, punter James Burnip had another solid performance, averaging 46.1 yards on eight punts while booting two balls more than 50 yards and pinning USF inside its 20-yard line four times.
On the defense stopping fourth-down attempts
āIf you go for it on fourth down ā they went for it six times, only converted two ā thatās like four turnovers. So we got two turnovers, got another turnover where we had a penalty. So I think it was huge, especially field position.ā
Tonyās take: USF went for it on fourth down six times and only moved the chains twice. Those four stops for Alabama were crucial considering how much its offense struggled on the day.
On Dallas Turner and Alabamaās pass rush
āI think we had a lot better pressure in the game. We thought they would go fast, which sometimes they did, but sometimes they didnāt and maybe we could have subbed on third down. But our whole plan thinking that they would go fast was to play with the guys that we had in the game. So we actually played (Chris Braswell) and (Dallas Turner) sort of at the defensive ends and two athletic guys inside. So thatās how we thought we had to play on third down. Thatās how we played the whole game. And the guys did a pretty good job on third down, too. I think they were like 5-for-17 or something, which is a pretty good job of getting off the field.ā
Tonyās take: After failing to bring down Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers once in Week 2, Alabama recorded four sacks on USF quarterback Byrum Brown. Dallas Turner led the way with 2.5 sacks, including one that forced a fumble that was recovered by freshman James Smith to set up Alabamaās first field goal. This was more of what we expected to see from the Crimson Tideās talented front seven and is a positive sign heading into SEC play.
On Jalen Milroeās positive attitude on the sideline despite not playing
āHe did a great job. He really has been supportive of his teammates, and I was happy to see that. And hopefully, weāll all learn lessons from the experiences that we have and move forward in a positive way.ā
Tonyās take: It would have been easy for Milroe to pout or hang his head after not getting into the game. His positive attitude did not go unnoticed by his head coach.
On what USF did to give Alabama trouble
āThey have probably as exotic a pressure package as anybody we play against, and they do a really good job of executing it. And I donāt think they did anything different. Itās just that the multiples, thereās so many multiples that youāve gotta change protections and slide protections different ways and recognize how to do that. I thought we did a good job in practice of handling it, but we didnāt do a good job today in the game a couple times handling it.ā
Tonyās take: Alabama put in a rough performance Saturday. A better team than USF would have likely handed the Crimson Tide its second loss of the season. Fortunately for Alabama, it has time to recover and make corrections heading into SEC play.
