Everything Nick Saban Said After Alabama Held on to Beat Florida
Head coach Nick Saban notched road victory No. 50 at Alabama with the 31-29 win at Florida on Saturday afternoon.
Here's what he said during his postgame press conference:
"Outstanding win for our team. Tough environment to play. Florida is a really good team. They had a great plan. Offensively against us, they took us out of a lot of the things we wanted to do when they kept running the speed option. But I think the big thing to learn for our players is we continue to be able to maintain integrity throughout a game. When we got ahead 21-3, I think our players played absolutely great football. And then we go three-plays-and-out three times in a row on offense. Eventually, they score a touchdown and get the crowd back into the game, and then it was difficult after that. It was really difficult after that.
“I think our players showed a lot of resiliency in the game. We made plays that we had to make on offense. We stopped the two-point conversion. We made the plays that we had to make on offense to stay ahead in the game as well as take the air out of it at the end of the game.
“So tough place to play. I thought Bryce did a really good job of managing the crowd noise. There were some times where it gave us issues, but it was really more of a snap-count issue than it was his doing. The center had a tough time hearing a couple times, and we snapped the ball late and got some penalties.
“But all in all, I think there’s a lot to learn. I’m hopeful that our team can learn from this experience, learn how to improve, learn how to get better. Kind of see where you are personally as a player, where we are collectively as a team, what we need to do to get better individually and improve and play with more consistency and maintain intensity as well as do the same thing as a team.
“There’s a lot of good things for us to learn out there, but we started to reel a little bit on defense. I think we got tired. I think we got tired in the second quarter, played a lot of plays when we went three-and-out three times in a row. So we either gotta play more players or have more opportunities, but we had a difficult time stopping the run. They had 258 yards rushing. I don’t think we’ve had that for a long time. But between the quarterback runs -- and I thought their quarterback did a really good of completing some passes when they needed to. We only got one turnover in the game, so there’s a lot of things that we need to do better, no doubt.”
On what he thought of running back Brian Robinson Jr.'s game:
“B-Rob played a really good game. I thought he did a really good job in the game. He got banged up a little bit in the end. I think he bruised his ribs or something, but I think he’ll be OK. I thought he played really well in the game, strong running. I thought Jase [McClellan] played really well in the game, too. I thought those two guys really both did an outstanding job.”
What concerns you the most about the game?
“What concerned me most was that we could not sustain our intensity, especially on defense. We had a lot of mental errors. And they did a good job, they did a really good job. They had a good plan. When you’re playing the option, everybody’s gotta be disciplined. Somebody’s got the quarterback, somebody’s got the pitch, and because we weren’t doing that correctly I think we were afraid to do a lot of other things that we had planned in the game. But we didn’t get off the field on third down either. We had several opportunities, especially in the fourth quarter, to get off the field on third where we created long-yardage situations.
"When they went 99 yards for a touchdown, they got it backed up on the 1-yard line and we got a third down, we’ve gotta get off the field. Another situation where it was 3rd-and-18, they complete a pass for 16 yards and go for it on fourth down and convert. So we’ve gotta get off the field on third down. So all in all, it was just our execution on defense and the fact that we didn’t get off the field on third down.”
On the game clock issues while you were trying to run time down. How much of an issue was that?
“It certainly didn’t help any [laughs]. It’s nice to know if the clock’s running or the clock’s not running. We had to tell the quarterback when the clock was running. So we were milking the clock when the clock really wasn’t running. So we were going off the 40-second clock. It did complicate it a bit. But I think our players did a pretty good job of managing it. The one time we got it down to one and I was running to call a time out, but we got the play off. We just need to do a little better job in those situations. We (need) to be out of the huddle at 15, be ready to run the play at eight and snap it at three or four.”
On Will Anderson limping after the game:
“He didn’t limp off the field, he was fine. He played more plays probably and got tired in the game. That was probably his biggest issue. I talked to him in the locker room after the game and asked him if he had any issues, he said no. He said he did get tired in the game, though. It was humid out there.”
On Bryce Young and his composure:
“I think Bryce did a really good job. I think he was very composed. It was a difficult circumstance and situation to play in. We clapped some, we went on silent some. But I thought he managed the game really well, made some really, really good decisions for the most part. We did a nice job on third down, which was really important in the game. He made some good reads, guys made some good catches. I thought offensively, other than those three three-and-outs in the second quarter, we did a good job of moving the football. We didn’t always score a touchdown, but I think when you control the tempo of the game on offense and even when you move the ball and control the clock, keep the defense off the field, those are important things when you’re playing good teams.”
How does a game like this help you moving forward?
“I think that the players should gain some respect for winning and what it takes to win. I think resiliency, overcoming adversity, we had to do that today, and I think that if you’re going to win games against really good teams, you certainly need to know how to do that. I talked about collective character of our team, which is all about discipline. It’s all about resiliency, it’s all about mental and physical toughness to hang in there and persevere in difficult times, and I thought our players did a pretty good job of that.”
On defending Florida's crucial two-point conversion:
“Look, they get in empty and they read the box. That’s how they scored on the fourth and 1 or 2 that they had before. We actually had a loaded box, and if you have a loaded box, you throw it. On that one, we actually were playing split-safety coverage, so he had to run read and our guys just did a really good job up front of stopping the dive. He really rode the guy for a long time, so the runner couldn’t, like, hit it. That was a good job by the defense, especially the guys up front.”
