Practice Report: Alabama Gearing Up To Welcome Texas A&M to Tuscaloosa This Weekend
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The University of Alabama football team participated in its second full-pad practice of the week on Wednesday afternoon gearing up for the home opener against Texas A&M on Saturday, which is set for a 2:30 p.m (CT) kickoff.
As for the weather, the high temperature reached 80 degrees with sunny, clear skies. The practice lasted two hours at the Thomas-Drew Practice Fields.
Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban addressed the media afterwards, for one final time before Saturday's matchup.
"I think the players are working really hard this week to take advantage of some of the lessons that we learned in the first game, (to) try to get prepared for a very, very talented Texas A&M team," Saban said in Wednesday's press conference. "They've got a lot of starters back. They've got a lot of experience. Got a lot of good players at key positions whether it's quarterback, running back, lots of good defensive players. We've had some tough games with these guys in the past and certainly need to elevate our game to maintain sort of the intensity and the standard of excellence that we want to play with for 60 minutes in the game. And I think everybody's got to challenge themselves to do that.
"Kevin Elko talks to the team, and I think he made a good point. You can always ask yourself, 'What if?' You can ask yourself, 'What if I'm play with discipline? What if I dominate the guy? What if I play hard for 60 minutes? What if I maintain intensity?' Those are all questions that you ask yourself before something happens. And then you can say, 'Only if,' and that's what you ask yourself after it happens. You know, 'Only if I had done this, only if I'd prepared better, only if I had to play for 60 minutes.' So I think those are all lessons that we're trying to get our players to understand that you got to pay the price for success up front. And it's important that they prepare well. And they certainly have great respect for the team that they play and what they have to do to have the best chance to have success against them.
"This week is college football Mental Health Week. We're proud to be a part of the Hilinski Hope for three and a third, something that we supported last year when we played at South Carolina. I've also been involved for probably 20 years with Jason Foundation, which is all about suicide awareness and teens. So we think this is a very important cause to create awareness on a national basis. So a lot of people can be very, very supportive. We're also taking part in the First-and-Gold awareness to fight cancer, Children's Cancer Research and curing cancer for young people. I think they've raised like $17.5 million dollars over the years, and we're very pleased and happy to be a part of that as well.
"With that, we've looking forward to playing in Bryant-Denny Stadium this week, I know it won't be the same without all the fans, but we know you'll be there in spirit. And I hope the fans that are there will do a great job of helping our team and cheering out team along so that they can maintain the emotional standard that they need to be able to play well for 60 minutes."
One of the main emphasis at practice this has been making sure that everyone finishes well and maintains high intensity for 60 minutes. Saban noted that, if the team has a repeat of the second half of the Missouri game, negative consequences could be coming.
"Well, we're going to have to finish better -- finish blocks, finish runs -- because these guys are really athletic, they can get off and make plays," Saban said. "We'll have to do a good job on third down, because these guys have a lot of different pressures that they use, so we need to execute extremely well on third down. And like beating a dead horse, I don't think we played very well in the second half, so we didn't play a complete game. So obviously that's really, really important.
"I guess you could ask Oklahoma that question, because I'm sure their coach is saying some of the same things that we said. Their players probably responded a little bit better, because they have negative consequences. Our players -- the worst thing you can do is play poorly and win, and we played poorly in the second half and I don't think anybody's immune from that. I've told the players that, so I'm not talking about them behind their back. And it's really my responsibility. I came home and felt really bad that I must've done a really, really bad job not in getting the players ready to play the game, but maintaining their intensity throughout the game and doing a good job at halftime of trying to get them to come out and maintain the energy that they needed to maintain to be able to play for 60 minutes in the game [and] not thinking that -- hey, looking at the scoreboard, we always say that there's no scoreboard. So that's something that we need to improve on, because when we play a good team like Texas A&M who's capable with a quarterback of coming back in the game -- 28-3 or whatever the score was, the game ain't over then. Not when there's two quarters left to play. So that's the thing I was most disappointed in, so if I was most disappointed in it, I think that's the thing we need to improve on the most."
