Nick Saban's Focused on Instilling Team Discipline to Fight the Tide's Penalty Pandemic
The Alabama football program opens its 2023 campaign on Saturday against the MTSU Blue Raiders. While the Crimson Tide is heavily favored there's all kinds of questions to answer about the No. 4 team in the nation.
Who's going to play quarterback? Will the Tide run the ball better than last year? How will the two new coordinators impact the team on both sides of the ball? Can Alabama improve its 126th ranking on total penalties from last season?
The coaching staff has kept the quarterback cake largely a secret during fall camp but has been vocally adamant that correcting penalties is an issue that must be addressed if the Tide is to return to the national championship scene
"Penalties, those type things, when you have something to correct, then you place an emphasis on them. We have officials at practice. We chart the officials," said Kevin Steele during his only fall camp press conference. "There are repercussions for your actions, and it stays in front of you. In most cases in life, if you keep something that you need to correct in front of you continuously, most people learn.”
The Crimson Tide averaged 7.92 penalties per game last season, good enough for 126th in the nation and 13th in the SEC in 2022, only Tennessee committed more in the conference.
While Alabama played well enough to earn an invitation to the 2023 Sugar Bowl the Tide committed a whopping 41 penalties in its three closest contests, a one-point win at Texas, a three-point loss at Tennessee and a one-point loss at LSU.
One could argue that simply addressing the yellow-flag issue that plagued the Tide last season could see the program right back in the 2024 College Football Playoff.
"Well, eliminating penalties has been something for our entire team. We got way too many penalties last year — got lots of penalties on the line of scrimmage, got a lot of penalties on offense on the line of scrimmage, a lot of pre-snap penalties — which those are sort of a lack of discipline," said Nick Saban on Wednesday. "So we’ve tried to do things in practice to get guys to play with more discipline, to watch the ball, not jump offsides, not have illegal formations, have better communication with the quarterbacks so we don't have false starts. And I think we’ve made some progress in those areas.
"Every day, we track every penalty, and if anyone [gets] more than one penalty, their whole group is affected in some way. And I point out the fact that this guy got more than one penalty today. So, we’ll see if it works. But, heaven knows that’s something that we have paid great attention to. Sometimes you wonder if you pay so much attention to something — is that really helping or hurting it? I don’t know. If you tell somebody that they’re not very tough, they start thinking they’re not very tough. So, hopefully, we’re not telling anybody that — and we’re telling everybody they’re going to be disciplined enough to not get penalties."
Alabama is favored on Saturday by 39-points and will likely come away with a comfortable victory, but the season opener against an inferior opponent is about more than simply emerging 1-0.
The Crimson Tide committed six penalties in the 55-0 route of Utah State in last year's opener, four of them were procedural variations.
Alabama is breaking in a new quarterback to lead the offense and will likely lean on the running game to give the signal-callers a bit of breathing room. However, even with the new faces, the significance of playing clean, efficient, penalty-free football cannot be overstated.
See Also:
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Former Alabama LB Darren Mustin on The Joe Gaither Show | Episode 71: Aug. 30, 2023
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