Nick Saban Outlines Two Lessons that Alabama Football Should Learn from Texas

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — After Alabama's narrow 20-19 win at Texas on Saturday, it was obvious that there were lessons aplenty for the Crimson Tide to take with them on the plane flight home from Austin.

Undisciplined penalties — 15 in total — combined with an offense that, for the first three quarters, performed well below the talent listed on its roster created a recipe that almost spelled disaster for the then-No. 1 ranked team in the country.

According to head coach Nick Saban, Alabama is doing exactly what it should be: learning from its mistakes.

According to Saban, there were plenty of lessons to be learned from the Crimson Tide's struggles agains the Longhorns. However, Saban had narrowed his list of mistakes down to two crucial lessons that need to be learned by his team this week in practice.

"I think there's a lot to learn from this last game," Saban said during his Monday morning press conference. "I think No. 1, it's not just about playing hard. I think our guys played hard in the game. They persevered in the game in tough circumstances, they overcame adversity, they showed great resiliency. But it's also about playing smart, having good discipline to execute, focus on what's in front of you and do your job. Not only do your job, but do it fundamentally with the correct technique.

"Whether it's hand placement for an offensive lineman, whether it's footwork for defensive backs, whether it's running your feet on contact when you're tackling. All these things are basically fundamental things that people have to do every day in practice so that there aren't bad habits that show up in the game. And I think that's a big lesson for us to learn."

Heading into Saturday's game, Alabama was favored by best Texas by 21 points by most popular betting sites. In a game that lost a lot of people a lot of money — and no doubt made a small selection of people quite wealthy — the margin of victory was all the way down to a single point in the Crimson Tide's win.

Saban doesn't typically discuss betting lines or odds or anything of the sort. However, he repeatedly referenced the line during last week's episode of Hey Coach!

Saban wasn't finished discussing the betting line, as he once again brought it up on Monday. In fact, the line served as Saban's second lesson that he and his team can learn from last weekend's game.

"Second thing is, is what does it mean to be favored by 21 points?" Saban said. "Well, there were two teams that I know of _ maybe more, I don't know _ that were favored by about the same amount that actually got beat. So I guess it doesn't mean anything, and that's why we have to play the games. So it's important for players to learn that they have to focus and prepare for every team and every opponent so that they can go out there and play to the best of their ability.

"Because sometimes even when you win, you can lose. The challenge for us, from top to bottom in the organization, is to hold each other accountable, to make sure that we're putting the players in the best position to have a chance to be successful, but we're also teaching them fundamentally what they need to do to be able to have success — but then they have to be accountable to challenge themselves every day to be able to do it.

Saban's reference of the betting line is likely aimed at his players and fans more so than himself and his coaches, but the lesson remains. While the Crimson Tide ultimately emerged from DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium as the game's winner as predicted, the narrow margin of victory cost itself the top spot in the AP Top 25, as the team fell to second and was replaced by Georgia.

Alabama now prepares itself for this coming Saturday's game against Louisiana-Monroe, which should serve as a means for the Crimson Tide to rehearse its discipline and practice its other lessons that it will be focusing on this week. Alabama might have a 2-0 record, but it has a lot of room for improvement if it wants to add 10 more wins to that record by the regular season's end.