Football vs. Chattanooga Postgame Quotes
11/19/2016 10:25:00 PM | Football
Alabama Head Coach Nick Saban
Opening statement
"Well that probably wasn't our best effort, but I think you have to give the Chattanooga players a lot of credit. They really played hard, and they played well. They played with a lot of grit and a lot of toughness. We knew this would be a challenge for us at this point in the season to get our guys to play at a high level even though we wanted to kind of build on the momentum. We wanted to get everybody's confidence to where it would be really good going into next week. I thought our players responded a little better in the second half.
"The defense obviously played pretty well in giving up just three points. We had a couple of miscues on a couple passes early in the game. Offensively, we didn't have a whole lot of consistency, and we definitely need to do better with that.
"I think there are a lot of lessons to be learned. You can talk to the players as much as you want about whoever it was that beat Iowa, either South Dakota State or North Dakota State or somebody like that. Then Iowa beats Michigan, so you can go on and on about how this happens all the time in college football. If you're not really ready to play, and you don't prepare well to play, it's very difficult when you don't have high energy and intensity to compete in this kind of a game. The other team has a historical moment when they come to play you. They can make history by doing something special, and it's a very big game for them.
"I think the good news is there are a lot of lessons that we can learn from this game, and we've just got to get ourselves ready to play a very good opponent next week. It's a very challenging game for us. We need to get our team refocused and re-centered, and I think everybody will be ready to do that."
On whether the team showed complacency in pre-game warmups:
"I didn't see it in pregame warmups. I worried about it all week long. When you're playing conference games every week and other big games every week it's really hard to get guys not to have a let-down. When you use the word 'just' – 'just' racing against this guy; I'm 'just' playing this team – you set yourself up for thinking something is going to be easy, and you can be complacent. You don't have to have the same kind of energy level to go play the game. So I think that's deeply rooted. It didn't happen in pre-game warmup. I thought we started out fast on offense. They played hard, and we got frustrated a little bit. The defensive guys hung in there and only gave up three points, so that was a pretty good job by them, but we just have to do a little better."
On the status of Cam Robinson and Korren Kirven:
"Both of those guys had some little shoulder problems. We think they'll be okay, and the doctor is going to evaluate them. We'll make sure that they're going to be okay, and we expect them both to be able to play next week."
#54 Dalvin Tomlinson, DL
On the second half:
"Just coming from the first half, we had to regroup. We weren't executing how we were supposed to, but the second half we played a lot better. There are still things we need to work on and execute better in the next game."
On Chattanooga:
"They were a pretty good team. They had a good game plan against us, and they were executing a lot more early on in the game, but we came out in the second half and executed a lot more than the first half, which helped us get a little more momentum in the first half."
#11 Gehrig Dieter, WR
On his touchdowns:
"It felt really good. We came out a little slow, but we picked it up in the second half. I do think we will be playing a lot better next week."
On the Iron Bowl:
"I feel like everyone in the country kind of watches that game growing up. I always watched it growing up, and it's exciting that I have the chance to play in it. It's pretty exciting, as a team, what we've been doing this year, so we will come out next game and have an intensity about us."
Chattanooga Head Coach Russ Huesman
On tonight's play overall:
"I thought our guys played hard with a lot of energy and excitement. It was really physical out there, and I am really proud of how our guys fought. I think that every one of our players played hard. Obviously you can't make mistakes against a really good football team. We got the muffed punt and the turnover there at the end, but I thought we played really good defense for the most part.
"Offensively, we got some first downs. I remember playing them here in 2013 and barely recording a first down. They have got a really good football team, and they probably slept walked coming into this game. I am not trying to think that they were all jacked up to play Chattanooga, but our guys were pretty excited to play, and I am awful proud of them."
On tonight's defensive performance:
"I thought our defense played really well. We sacked him (Jalen Hurts) a bunch, and he probably hasn't been sacked that much this year. We played good, and we did a good job of flushing him out. We gave up the first deep ball, but that's a guy (Calvin Ridley) that can run, and he just got behind us on that play. We made a commitment coming into this game that we weren't going to let them get behind us, and for the most part we did that. That got behind us that one time. I also think we did pretty good against the run, as they only ran for 196 yards, which is pretty good for us."
On the playoff selection tomorrow:
"We will be in. I will be in my office watching the show at 11 a.m., and the guys will lift at 1 p.m., and then we will meet and get ready to go play another football game. I think that this game is really going to help us because we came out healthy, which is always a concern when you play someone like Alabama."
#15 Alejandro Bennifield, QB
On going against the Alabama defense:
"Going against the No. 1 defense is always tough when you're going against guys like that. They are big and fast, but I feel like our play calling helped us out a lot. We set up some different things with our scheme, and it made us successful."
On how much of a performance against Alabama can help them in the playoffs:
"It can definitely boost our confidence, playing guys like that. Usually, you come in and you do not think you're going to do too well, but once we started going, guys got a lot of confidence. Now we know we can play with them. We can play with anybody."
#93 Keionta Davis, DE
On the success against the Alabama offense:
"We just played hard. Everyone did their assignments. We had a few mistakes here and there, and it costed us, but for the most part we played hard. We fought and hung in there."
On looking forward to the playoffs:
"Everybody is excited. We are going to the playoffs, and we are just ready to play the next game. Everybody is ready, excited and ready to get back on the field."
