After Final Scrimmage of Fall Camp, Intensity and Urgency Amped Up for Alabama as Season Opener Nears
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — As if it wasn't at high levels already, the intensity and urgency in the University of Alabama football team's preparations for its season opener against Missouri, in less than two weeks now, will be turned all the way up.
“I think what you want to see is a lot of improvement from the first scrimmage to the second scrimmage which means that some of the things that you’ve done in practice have been very effective in helping your players improve and I think we certainly did that," Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban said following the second and final scrimmage of fall camp on Saturday afternoon.
"I also think that we wanted to make things very game-like today so even though last week’s Saturday practice was sort of game situations it really was still not a scrimmage and today for at least 30-something plays we played exactly like a game with kicking situations, scores, stops, turnovers — whatever happened, happened and we had to go adjust and make the next play and I think that was beneficial to the players as well."
Over the last three weeks or so of practice, Saban and his coaching staff have been preaching the importance of getting back to Alabama's normal standard of imposing its will on opponents, trusting the process, and getting back to the basics of what it takes to play winning football.
"But I think one of the most important things we need to do is it’s very important that our players sort of buy into the culture of what has helped us be successful here for a long, long time and that’s the intangibles that we play with, the work ethic that we have, the discipline that we play with, the toughness, the effort and people having a great sense of urgency about how important it is to do their job so that their unit — their team — has a chance to be successful," Saban said.
"And that means we have to play at a standard and it’s not ever really anybody else’s standard. It’s our standard. I think everybody’s gotta buy into that. They’ve got to buy into the team, the team having success and winning is very, very important and that should be what everybody buy into. ‘Be the best player I can be so I can contribute to the team’s success’ and in that — most of the time if you do that — you can create tremendous value for yourself individually because that means you’re playing at a high level and playing like everybody likes to see you play which is playing winning football on a consistent basis."
Players have scheduled off days on Sunday and Monday, but when Tuesday rolls around, it is time to start prepping for the Tigers according to Saban.
"So I think this kind of signals the end of camp even though we didn’t have camp," Saban said. "We now have to have a sense of urgency to get ready for the season. We’ll actually start that when we get back to practice on Tuesday in terms of early opponents and start to get ready for our first game."
