Nick Saban Monday Press Conference Opening Statement
9/19/2016 4:46:00 PM | Football
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Nick Saban met with the media on Monday afternoon. Following is his opening statement:
"As I said after the game, I am very proud of the way our team competed in the game. The guys really played hard; played with a lot of heart; played with a lot of competitive spirit; but when you look at things the devil is kind of in the details. We could have really lost the game based on mental mistakes, metal errors, and lack of execution at times, which led to really bad plays for our team. Our focus needs to be on getting these things corrected and having the ability to focus on each and every play. It's kind of hard to figure that out when you get behind 24-3. We basically gave them 14 points – one was the missed execution of a line call, which gave them a sack fumble for a touchdown, and one, which was a busted coverage in the secondary and was really pretty easy and a lack of disciple and eye control led to an uncontested touchdown. Then to come back and sort of go 45-6 over the next however many minutes in the game, and we followed that by doing a really poor job finishing the game and allowing them to score 13 points in the last five minutes. All these things catch up with you if you don't fix them, correct them, focus on every play and get things executed properly; that leads to a lot of problems. You don't ever want to beat yourself, and when you do things like that you give yourself an opportunity to beat yourself. It's one thing to get beat physically – you can't cover them, you can't block them upfront – that's different and that may happen someday. All this other stuff, you beat yourself and that is what we have to get fixed.
"I'm sure you all got the players of the week. We aren't practicing today. I think our team needs a little bit of a physical rest and recovery time, so we will have our normal meetings, and we will do stretch and stride, but we are not practicing today.
"ArDarius Stewart would be the biggest question mark for this game. I think Jalen (Hurts) is fine, Eddie Jackson is fine and Minkah (Fitzpatrick) is fine, but it may take a day or so to get those guys back in the lineup. The focus here for us is to sort of pay attention to detail, play in and play out, so that we get better consistency and execution.
"Kent State, my alma mater. I was telling Terry this morning, I watch these games and tapes and look out on the field and (think about how) I played there, and I can't remember too many games that I played in there, so I guess I'm getting old. They did a nice job against Penn State; it was 16-13 at the half, and they actually missed a field goal to tie the game. I think they have settled on a quarterback, No. 17, (Mylik) Mitchell, who is a very athletic guy and has played really well for them. You don't have to look far to see Central Michigan beating Oklahoma State. The Mid-American Conference is sort of known for being able to come up against really good teams and come up with some wins. Obviously, North Dakota State beating Iowa, which is a ranked team, this happens every week and it happens because the teams that they are playing don't have the proper respect. They don't prepare correctly. They don't play very well and the other team has players too that are very capable. They need to be respected, and we need to focus on what we need to do to get better as a team and play to out standard, and that certainly is going to be the message for this week."
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