Alabama / A Day 2008 interviews Nick Saban, John Parker Wilson

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A-Day Draws 78,200
Nick Saban (Alabama Crimson Tide Head Coach)

These post game comments came as Coach Saban answered questions from the press pool ...

Coach Nick Saban ...

Guys, the first thing is I’d certainly like to thanks our fans. Great turnout today, it was a great day today. I’ve been involved with a lot of things in a lot of places, but this is really a positive family experience we have here to get ready for A-Day … to have 78-thousand people come to the game … to honor our captains today at Denny Chimes. It’s tradition like no other I’ve seen relative to giving someone the opportunity to become part of a legacy. Of all the people who have been captains and leaders here on this team, I got the opportunity to see a lot of supporters today. We have lots of recruits here and a lot of people we recruited here. I think this is a special day. And probably as significant a day in terms of positive family atmosphere that I’ve ever been around wherever I’ve been or been a coach. We certainly appreciate all those who make an effort to make this day outstanding. From a game standpoint, I was pleased with the way we played. I didn’t think our effort and energy and all that defensively was exactly what we would like it to be. But we had a pretty simple game plan. I was really pleased the offense was able to execute a little bit better … made some plays in the passing game … made some plays. After a little bit of a slow first series, John Parker played, you know, really well. I was just pleased overall with the way we were able to execute offensively and score the points we scored. It was a nice 2-minute right before the half to score. I was pleased with the way our receivers, even though we did have some drops today, made some plays. Darius Hanks made some plays. Mike McCoy made some plays. So I was pleased with that. Terry Grant made some plays. We were very much pleased with the way we played offensively and it will be a key to our success to continue to develop playmakers on offensive, and make explosive plays as well as find some other guys to play and add depth to our team. I think one of the things that is most evident is the opportunity the some young people have who are out there watching today to come here and get a chance to play relatively early, relative to the depth we have on the team. We have pretty representative starting units both ways, but we have some areas of weakness and certainly don’t have enough depth on our team, which is evident when you watch and the 2s are out there. That’s something we need to improve dramatically between now and next season. We need to develop more players on our team so they can play winning football and hopefully some of the players we recruited will add some depth to our football team as well, in terms of their maturity and being able do what we want to do next fall.

So far, we’ve had a good Spring. A lot of guys have made a lot of improvement. We still have one more practice, but I was pretty pleased with the way things went for us out there today.

Press Pool - Coach could you assess a little more how John Parker played … and will you be dressed in black on Monday after nearly getting hit by Brandon Fanning.

(smiles) Well, I think that was John Parker’s fault. I think he was running a pick off me. I will wear a black shirt next year so there’s no contact on the coach (press pool laughs). But the athleticism showed just to get out of his way shows you that it’s still there; we still got it (smiles and press pool laughs). Quick enough feet not to get run over. It usually happens to me in the deep middle. I’m usually standing on the other side and can see what’s coming … well, I was watching the coverage and didn’t see the rush. So … my old quarterback days … but John Parker did that on purpose I promise you (press pool laughs again).

Well, first also … how did John Parker look, and what did you see today that was, kind of, better than the first scrimmage?

Well, John Parker has had a good Spring. He’s demonstrated a lot of maturity. I think he understands. We spent a lot of time in the off-season talking about things that can help him become a more consistent performer making business decisions from his position. He’s a very competitive guy. You know, sometimes you’ve got to throttle that a little bit when you’re playing quarterback so you’re always making the best decisions for your team. I think he’s showing some maturity in that. I think the offensive we have now is a little more quarterback friendly. I think actually he feels more comfortable with what we’re doing and I think he’s very confident. He had a good bowl game which was probably a confidence builder for him. I think it carried over into the off-season and has certainly carried over into the Spring. He’s working with a lot of new people. Nikita Stover is probably our most experienced player coming back. He participated very little this Spring, so we’re working with a lot of young guys, other than Mike McCoy, who really haven’t played a lot. He showed a lot of patience with helping those guys develop. There were some occasions today where he really could have got a little upset and frustrated with some drops, especially early on. But he just kept doing his job and made plays, and eventually we made plays offensively and I think that’s a sign of maturity in itself.

Also, you have mentioned that Terry Grant is 100% healthy from the surgery, but to see him go 75-yards like that and really turn it on, kind of prove that maybe?

Well, he’s been doing that all Spring. We’ve gotten to watch him all Spring. So … you know (shrugs) … but he’s been really good all Spring and been healthy all Spring and played fast all Spring. He’s a guy that has the ability to make explosive plays. He makes plays, especially in space. There was a long-yardage situation, the defense played ‘man under’ so he singled up on a linebacker and beat him. Everyone else has their backs turned … so it was a great opportunity for him to make a big play and he took advantage of it.

At tight end you have a lot of guys with a lot of experience, and so forth. Is that why they are more prominent in the offense, or is it something in the offense that features the tight end more?

We’ve just flexed the tight ends out, all Spring long. Last year, we played a lot of ‘4 wideouts’, but that was a strength of our team was wide receiver. So we wanted to utilize their talents. So this Spring we didn’t have the numbers, the quality or the experience at that position, in numbers at least. So we have utilized the tight end, and flexed them out. I think that Nick Walker had a pretty good Spring. Travis McCall has done a really good job in terms of practicing and improving and doing what we need to do. I don’t know what the situation was with Collin Peek. I know he dropped one today, but he’s a really good pass receiver and a good blocker and would help us. And some of the other guys are athletic and can make plays in the passing game as well. Most of the time you say a tight end is a mismatched player for you. Those guys made some plays today and did a pretty good job all Spring.

Can you comment on Alfred McCullough and the improvements he’s made? Is that what you’ve been seeing all spring the way he played today?

Well, I think he’s gotten in shape in the off-season program and improved his strength and can sustain his performance a little bit better. I think one of the biggest problems with young guys who are lineman … they base their quality of performance on how much they weigh. So they get overweight, they’re out of shape, they have to run and they go through a whole year of development to get themselves back where they need to be so they can be productive players and sustain their performance. You know Alfred got … we got him in a lot better shape in the off-season program and that carried over into Spring practice and he has done a pretty good job for us all Spring long and he made some plays today. He’s an instinctive player.

You’ve talked a lot about the receivers and the passing game and where they’re at. What about the running game? Did we see where it was at today?

We’ve been very pleased with our starting offensive line. Smitty’s (Andre Smith) had a good Spring. Antoine Caldwell has had a good Spring. Mike Davis has had a good Spring. Marlon Davis had a really good Spring, and probably played the best he’s played since we’ve been here. Drew Davis has been the most improved player strength and development-wise of anybody and probably been the surprise of the Spring relative to his ability to play right tackle. I think the offensive line is good. We have not run the ball consistently. But it was not one of our goals today to go out there and really try to establish and run the ball a lot. I think the most important thing to come out of this scrimmage relative to where our team is today is to develop some confidence in the receiving corps and have the quarterbacks come out feeling good about where they are and where we are in the passing game. That was the goal going in and that’s probably why we didn’t run it very much.

Now that Jimmy Johns has completed a Spring at linebacker and you feel like he is a linebacker … what does he need to do in the off-season to be productive in the Fall?

I think the most important thing is that Jimmy develop the knowledge and experience in doing it so he can eliminate mental errors and play fast. Because when he plays fast he plays pretty well. He is a thumper and he will hit you. I think that’s an asset for him. A lot of times I think he knows what to do, but he has a tough time applying it on the field in terms of recognition. One of the reasons we tried him at outside backer is because it is a one-key position, so we thought that would help him. We’re still in the process of analyzing that a little bit. But having not played defense, how fast is he going to develop the instincts to play … key and diagnose; those kinds of things … so he can play fast and up to his ability.

Did the assistant coaching assignments matter for the two teams? For instance, did Coach Mac (Jim McElwain) call the offense for both sides and so forth?

I don’t know what it matters, but no he didn’t call the plays for both sides. I think it’s an opportunity to develop play callers on your staff. I tried to get the media guys to call some plays, but they didn’t want to call them, they just wanted to second guess what we called (press pool chuckles) They left us high and dry. So we had to use the guys we had available. Curt (Cignetti) called for one team. Mac called for the other. Kevin Steele called for one team. Kirby (Smart) called for the other. That’s the same way we did it last year (voice rising) and there’s no significance to it. I know we’re going to take this away from here (outside the pressroom) and say it has to mean something. It means it’s the way you do it in the Spring game. I’ve always done it that way; Jimbo Fischer was the offensive coordinator, but someone always called the plays for the other team. So there isn’t anything to it.

Coach, talk about the development of Cory Reamer. Seems like he had a pretty productive day going at the inside linebacker position.

You know, Cory is one of those guys that’s made a tremendous amount of improvement this Spring. First of all, he was a DB when he came here. We thought he had the instincts, but didn’t know if he had the speed to play in the secondary. But he’s got good size, so we worked hard one trying to develop his size and strength and moved him to linebacker. He actually played more outside linebacker last year, but we moved him inside and let him play the ‘money position’ which is the nickel spot in sub. His athleticism helps him in both those positions and he has been a pleasant surprise this Spring. Hopefully, he’ll continue to get bigger and stronger this Spring and be able to play at the point better and continue to play with more power and be a more powerful tackler. That’s what we think are the things he needs to work on make another step in terms of being an inside linebacker.

Nick, would you compare where you are now as a football team to where you at last year’s A-Day game, and what do you mean when you say this offense is more quarterback friendly?

First of all, it’s tough to make comparisons. I think that we have a totally different team now, we have a totally different personality now. We have different players that we will feature. Last year, the strength on offense was probably the receivers. This year we’re going to have to do other things with other people and play younger players at those positions. So we’re going to have to have diversity in the kind of team we are on offense. I think our defensive team makes a lot less mistakes than what they made a year ago. When we put the whole body of work in … I think scheme is real important on defense … our players have to do a good job of understanding and executing that scheme to where it’s an advantage to them. But when you only play 3 or 4 defenses and two coverage’s, they have to physically be able to do things the right way and we gave up to many explosive plays, which is something we hope to improve on. So I can’t really say that I can compare. But I can say there’s more players on our team right now that understand the expectation of how important it is to do their job, and the level at which we want that job done on a consistent basis. I think that is a positive. The other thing is I think we have more players who understand the importance of how they represent the organization … how we want our team represented in terms of what we do and how we do it … that’s on and off the field. We have a better understand of that. And for the first time, I’ve seen leadership emerge this Spring from some of our players to affect other players. That’s not something we’ve had a lot of here. Because if you want to protect yourself and you don’t want to do it exactly right and enough is enough for you, how can you challenge someone else when you’re not doing it yourself? So, we have more of that on this team. From a talent standpoint, you guys can make your own assessments, and that’s something we have to continue to build because you need talented players. We have some very good players, but we certainly need more of them to be a dominant team in the SEC, there’s no doubt about that.

Can you talk about the set up today and the big crowd … were you eager to see how some of the younger guys who haven’t played in that situation performed? How would you evaluate that? Was there someone you thought prospered in that situation?

I think it’s only fair to be able to watch the film before you make an evaluation on that. It’s a little too personal to me to share the look in their eye, all right? But some of them had a good look, and some of them didn’t have a good look. Like I said before, we got enough show dogs around here, we’re looking for some hunting dogs, so that’s the look we’re looking for, all right? We’ve got enough of them worried about how their britches fit and how they look out there and how their hairdo is and all that kind of stuff. We need some guys who want to go dominant the guy they are playing against and get a flat back, get some hat speed and get after them, tackle them, block them and make plays and compete and all that stuff. So when we watch the film we’ll get a better idea about those kinds of guys. I saw the ‘brook trout’ look in a few of them … (smiles, and asks the reporter) … You know what that is right? … (reporter says “No”) … you don’t? ever go fishing? … (reporter says “no”) … well, then I can’t explain it to you (press pool laughs)