Go
to Home Games 2008 front page read Saban's comments from Tulane ... Western Kentucky ... Kentucky ... Ole Miss ... Ark. State ... and other interviews from 2007 Tide Holds Kentucky 17-14 These are the post game comments and interviews with Coach Nick Saban following the Western Kentucky game … Coach Nick Saban … All right. Well, we're certainly happy to win. But we also put on a clinic today for how to keep the other team in the game. We had 253 yards in the first half so you really can't say we didn't play well. We didn't finish drives. We fumbled the ball inside the 10-yard line and missed a field goal so we left 10 points on the field. Our defense did a good job in the first half. We scored on defense, which was good. But we had a season high for penalties - 10 for 92 yards - which is not indicative of our team. All these things lend themselves to the fact that this is the first opportunity for our team ... and I told our team this ... to play after they've been recognized on a national level. That's a different kind of psychological management to handle success. I would say we didn't handle it extremely well today because when you get satisfied, you lose your intensity and lose your focus and get more penalties and miss more assignments and you don't finish things and you don't do things exactly right. And when you don't do that, you don't play as well. And we didn't play well today because we didn't finish things and we didn't ever put the team away. In the second half, we didn't move the ball offensively very well, In the 3rd quarter, we gave up three big plays on defense. Other than that we played pretty well on defense. But big plays are always important in critical games ... you know ... two screens and a ball we bust coverage on in two minutes which could have cost us the game. I thought we played better on special teams today. I know we had one error on the catch. But that was a little bit of a miscommunication. I thought the kickoff coverage was a lot better. Obviously our specialist missed two field goals, but he kicked off well. So I thought we made some improvements there. Kentucky's defense is very good, I said that in the beginning. They're tough to run the ball on. I think it's outstanding that Glenn Coffee had over 200 yards rushing. The offensive line had to do a very, very good job. When you play a team like that you don't want to get behind on down and distance because you're not going to make very many big plays. We struggled in the passing game today. They played a lot of man-to-man and we didn't get away from them very well and we didn't protect very well. That's something we certainly need to improve on so as a team we can become a more efficient passing team. But again, there's a lot of lessons we can learn from today. And it's great to be able to learn those lessons and not have to lose. Our focus needs to be on how we can play better as a team and play with more consistency. But I don't want to take anything away from Kentucky's team because their defense did a great job and their players kept competing in the game and never gave up and we never put them away and we had some chances. We didn't have any injuries. "Smitty" (Andre Smith) sprained his elbow, but I think he's fine. Press Pool ... Coach, on their touchdown with :49 left ... was it that someone just left a man? Saban ... We were playing zone. We were playing 2-Deep Zone. You really try to reroute the guys running down the seams. They were in 4 streaks, which is their most common pattern in 2-minute, and most people's. We didn't do a very good job of rerouting the guy down the seam so the quarterback kind of looked at the tight end, the safety kind of bit and the guy ran over the top of him. So it was a mis-execution by the half-safety on that side, but it was also a mis-execution by the rerouters and the people playing underneath who are not supposed to let the guy get down on the safety that way. But in a case like that you've got to play over the top on everything, tackle them and make them drive it through. It's not the points, it's all (about) the clock. If they score on the last play of the game and it's 17-14, it doesn't matter. But to give them the opportunity to get an onside kick and run a couple of plays because you didn't play properly fundamentally is not what we want to do and is certainly something we need to correct. Nick ... on the 4th and 1 call at the end of the game in the middle of the field were you kind of going back and forth in your head and what went into that decision to go for it? No ... umm ... I think when we were in 3rd down we'd already said we were going for it on 4th down. I wanted to go for it. A lot of people were saying let's kick the field goal, and that created a little doubt. But the decision got made ... like it got made on 3rd down ... and we went for it. We were fortunate that we made it. And I think two things - the clock as well as it's not a gimme kick from where we were. And if you miss it, you give them the ball there anyway. You had mentioned making another player carry a football around to class ... does Coffee's fumbles ... is this something he has to work on? It happened a few times last year and it's something we need to analyze and need to address and figure out why it's happening. Last week, it wasn't technical. He got popped with a helmet right on the ball. There was a penalty on the play so it wasn't costly. And that's going to occur occasionally. I don't know what happened today, but we'll look at it and technically and fundamentally get it corrected. Did the penalties today help keep you from getting into a rhythm? It didn't help any. It puts you behind in down and distance. Julio (Jones) actually made two big plays that didn't count. So I can't comment on the plays. I don't know if they were good or bad ... you guys have probably seen them more than I've seen them. But I won't comment on them anyway. But we'll look at the film and get it corrected some kind of way. We were in an unbalanced line. Nick Walker swears he didn't go downfield. He knows it's an unbalanced line. He knows he's ineligible. Travis (McCall) says he was standing right by me, so we'll see what happened. Coach, can you comment on the impact Kareem Jackson's interception made in the 3rd quarter. It seemed to take away a lot of momentum from Kentucky. It certainly did. It gave us better field position and got the field position turned around. That was another Jailbreak Screen. Actually it was a Fake Jailbreak Screen Go. It was big. We drove the ball down there and I think that's when we missed a field goal, but it gave us a little momentum back in the game. The way we played in the 3rd quarter, we went totally flat offensively. I think that affects our team some. The way our defense played ... you know, they (Kentucky) got three big plays in 30 seconds. We get the pass interference call. They hit two screens for 30 or 40 yards apiece. The next thing you know, they're in the end zone. We can't have those kinds of let downs with what we're doing. So we need to play with consistency and not give up those kinds of big plays. Coach, you talk a lot about the importance of maintaining mental intensity. It seemed like the guys never really had it to start with in this game. Well, they gained 253 yards in the 1st half and we got ahead in the game 14-0 and I don't think they had very many 1st downs. So somebody had something. We just didn't finish and kind of lost it as the game went on. They (Kentucky) got it because of the way they played. So we didn't sustain it and we didn't execute and because of that I think we lost some in the game. Did we have as good as intensity as we had last weekend? Maybe not. But that's the challenge of being able to play. I will say this, our crowd had a tremendous effect on this game. They do a lot of checking at the line of scrimmage. We asked for noise. We got noise and it affected them in the 1st half. That really helped our defense tremendously and I really appreciate our fans. It probably affected the game as much as any we'll play here because of Kentucky's style of offense. Coach, can you talk about the drive to the field goal and the physicality of it and being able to keep the chains moving and run the clock ... It was two drives in a row. The drive before that we did that same thing but missed the field goal. We just decided to batten down the hatches and see ... we weren't doing anything else very well. We weren't protecting very well. We weren't throwing and catching very well. We had a lot of negative plays in the passing game so we went to our bread-and-butter and our strength and were able to sustain. I know it's ugly, but we won. Coach, how many of the struggles with protection were because of something ya'll were doing and how many were because of something they were doing? I don't really think they did anything we weren't prepared for. I don't think we did a very good job of executing. We just didn't in the passing game. We had some different guys playing out there. I think we made some plays with Julio. But we need more guys to step up with more consistency and that's a part of our team that we certainly need to improve on. It wasn't John Parker. I don't know that he had a misread or didn't do something the right way and he made some good throws and we left some plays out there because of penalties. What was that a 40-yard play we lost because of a penalty? Another had to be a 25-yard play because of the penalty. We just need to execute better. We can't have pressure in the pocket. We've got to get open. This is the first team we played that played a lot of man-to-man and we didn't handle it very well. Nick, I know you've said it's tough to judge when it's a good time for a bye-week. Judging from what you saw today, is this a good time for it? I think once you play six games, physically and emotionally and mentally, you're players are probably tired. I thought our players were a little tired this week ... I'm talking about emotionally. You can say what you want about our team, but I'll bet you there weren't that many people in this room betting that we'd be 6-0 right now. I'm not sure I would have bet it either if you want to know the truth about it. These guys have done a heck of a job to get where they are. Now whether we have whatever it takes to stay there and continue to improve against great competition in our league week in and week out, that's why we'll play the second half of the season. But I think after six games we need a couple of days off. There's plenty of things we need to work on in this bye-week to try and improve, but I also think our team needs some rest right now. Our team has played at a very high intensity level and they play with a lot of toughness and they should be commended for that. The second half of last week's game, we lost it a little bit and we struggled. We started out pretty well today and lost it a little. So we just need to regroup and do what we need to do technically to improve ... and we will ... and get these guys rested. I think getting Mike McCoy back in the passing game will help a little bit as well. Does that mean you're not only pleased with where you are but maybe even exceeded your own expectation a little bit too? I wouldn't say we've exceeded our own expectation because I always look at one game and think we can win any one game we play. I think you prepare that way as a coach. I never think about how many games we're going to win, or what our record is going to be, or what happens if this happens, or look at the board and say "Oh we can win these 7 games and we're going to lose these 4." I never do that. I know what the next game is and we're going to focus on putting our players in the best position we can to try to win that game. To give them the best opportunity to be successful in that game in terms of attitude development, technical execution, teaching ... everything we need to do. I was just trying to give our team some credit for what they accomplished in the first half of the season. What's up coach? You guys played lights-out in the first half defensively ... generally speaking about Eryk Anders ... what is he doing to ge more playing time and what is he doing to get so much pressure on the quarterback? Do we know what the halftime stats were? We had 253 yard and they had what ... 60? But we never played at all today. We never had any intensity. We never had it at all. I mean, you all are the stats people. That's why we do these right? So we did play pretty well in the 1st half, but we didn't score the points we should have scored and we didn't finish like we needed to. But again, in the second half, and it wasn't from being tired, we didn't do a very good job and lost the momentum of the game. And we left them in the game because of it. Eryk Anders has done a good job of being a ... we call it a "rabbit rusher"; it's a defensive end that's not really a defensive end but he plays on 3rd down. He's got some speed and he plays hard and he's making some plays for us. He's been playing now since the Arkansas game and doing a good job. If you could talk through the two touchdowns ... Glenn's run (78-yards) ... and on Rolando (McClain's) fumble recovery a forced error because of the pressure you brought? It was a screen pass and the quarterback was retreating because he was being pressured. The ball slipped out of his hand when he tried to throw it because he was backing up and trying to throw it over two guys. We put him in an awkward position so I would say the pressure contributed to it. I don't think we caused it, but the pressure contributed to it and we were able to take advantage of the opportunity. OK, thank you.
click the link to read the post game comments following the Kentucky game ... click here for other Homes Games 2008 interviews Glenn Coffee (#38 RB Jr. 2L 6'-1" 198 lbs. Ft Walton Beach High, Ft Walton Beach FL) Antoine Caldwell (#59 OL Sr. 3L 6'-3" 305 lbs. Lee High, Montgomery AL)
Go to
Home Games 2008 front page Reposting portions of this
copyrighted material is allowed for non-commercial purposes on message
boards. |
