Everything Nick Saban Said on Wednesday Ahead of Tennessee
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama football head coach Nick Saban spoke to the media on Wednesday night ahead of the Crimson Tide's homecoming game against rival Tennessee this coming Saturday.
This story will be updated with a quick-hitter style live updates thread throughout Saban's press conference and will be updated with a full transcript once it is available.
Nick Saban - Full Transcript - Oct. 20, 2021
Opening Statement
“We're certainly looking forward to an exciting game this week in Bryant-Denny Stadium. A big rivalry game for us. We've got a lot of respect for Tennessee. They're playing their best football of the season. Our guys have done a pretty good job this week of getting ready for the game. But you know getting ready for the game is just not how you practice, it's how you rest, it's how you take care of yourself, it's how you get treatment, how you eat, how you rest, everything.
“We're going to have to play our best football of the season. We're going to need a great crowd with great enthusiasm and energy that affects sort of the game in a really positive way for our team. That's always helpful. I would think because we're playing Tennessee and it's a rivalry game and playing at home and haven't been home for a while that everybody should be really excited about this game and what we need to do to try to play as well as we can possibly play so we have a chance to be successful.”
Drew Sanders and Byron Young injury update?
“Byron Young has practiced. He practiced today. We’re hopeful that he’ll be able to contribute some in the game. Drew Sanders is probably very doubtful for this game but we’re hopeful that maybe he’ll be — with the bye week coming up in another week — it just depends. They gotta re-X-ray his wrist and make sure that everything is ok in there and we’re hopeful that he’ll be back for LSU.”
Will Anderson lower-body power?
“Well, I think lower-body explosion — explosive quickness — those are important components to play any position in football. The more you can generate power from your lower body — but it’s not just having strong legs, it’s having flexibility of being able to explode out of your hips so that you can take advantage of that. It’s important in playing offensive line, it’s important playing defensive line, it’s important playing outside linebacker relative to it’s great to have speed and [...] to turn speed to power, you need that kind of lower-body explosion to be able to do that. It usually impacts your initial quickness and obviously the faster you can move, the inertia of that is what generates power as well. So I think it’s really critical at any position but Will is certainly a guy that has great lower-body explosion, initial quickness and that’s been a real advantage for him and his development as a really productive player.”
What makes Tennessee so effective at the run?
“I think that they go fast, so people have to get lined up and be ready to play. I think they got a really good runner and I think their quarterback’s ability to run contributes to that in terms of quarterback runs. So when they run the zone play, he’s very capable to try to cheat the end on the dive and the quarterback’s going to pull the both of them [...]. They’ve been very effective at doing that and they’re very well-coached so they don’t usually do it and make bad plays, they usually do it and make very positive plays. So they’ve got quarterback runs, they’ve got quarterback draws, they get you spread out and run those plays which is very challenging for the people up front and they’ve got the ability to throw the ball so you can’t just say ‘We’re gonna play the quarterback runs’ because they’ve made a lot of explosive plays in the passing game because the vertical stretch of the field and when they get you spread out, they’ll spit it out there if you don’t have enough guys out there and make positive plays as well. So this offense is very challenging.”
How is Henry To’oTo’o’s leadership at linebacker?
“Henry has done a really good job. He’s a good communicator, he’s smart — I think he helps everybody else play better up front in terms of his ability to communicate, have good understanding of the defense, what the offense is trying to do, what we’re trying to do on defense to stop it and I think that’s been very helpful to all of our players. Communication on defense is really important in adjustments and that’s one of the things that I think Henry has really added to our group is his ability to communicate and help other people be confident in doing the right things.”
Safety position with DeMarrco Hellams and Daniel Wright?
“We have confidence in both of those guys. They've both played a lot of good football. DeMarrco has been struggling with a kind of lingering ankle injury all the way back from fall camp. I thought that he's been a warrior all year long, fighting through this battle and in practice, overcoming adversity every way that he could, doing everything he could to help the team. But I also think that if he can't play 100 percent in some circumstances that we should try to protect him and give him an opportunity to have a chance to get back to 100 percent, which we try to cut down his reps the last couple of weeks. We still have every confidence in him playing in the game and he will play in games, and he may even start in the game because we view him as a starter. But last week, especially against the spread offense that we were playing against, we wanted to make sure we had fast, healthy guys out there that could cover people and cover ground and break on the ball and DeMarrco does those things extremely well, but you got to be 100 percent to do that, and we're trying to get them there.”
