Football vs. The Citadel Postgame Quotes
11/17/2018 3:13:00 PM | Football
Head Coach Nick Saban
Opening statement
"I think there are some lessons to be learned today. I think when you're not mentally ready to play a game, you don't look for some external factor like who you are playing against to motivate you because it's really not about winning or losing, it's really about trying to be the best player no matter who you are playing. I know it might be hard for some people to understand the concept of competition, and you really go out there to be the best player that you can be.
"We didn't play very well as a team in the first half, which I take a lot of responsibility for not getting our team ready psychologically. Every team that comes here and plays us is going to give us their best shot. These guys have everything to gain and nothing to lose. If you can't motivate yourself to be the best player that you can be, then you're not going to be ready to play.
"I think we did respond really well in the second half of the game, and I thought they tried to shrink the game as much as they could, limit the possessions, which we had gone into the game knowing they would do that. We told the offense, 'You have to take advantage of every opportunity that you have,' and in the first half, we turned the ball over, we went three-and-out once, we didn't score a touchdown in the red zone, so we didn't take advantage of the opportunities that we had. In the second half, we did a much better job on defense. We made some halftime adjustments to cover the formations they were in, and I think it helped us a bit. Everybody has to fit their responsibilities on the option, and two times we had a guy not take the pitch when he was supposed to, and it resulted in two 40-plus yard runs. Other than that I thought that our guys tried to execute fairly well. Obviously, the pass defense must have been pretty good because this was the first time I have ever coached in a game where the other team didn't have any yards passing. Hopefully our team will learn and grow from this, and you have to give their team a lot of credit as they played with a lot of heart and they were very tough, physical and aggressive.
"I don't think there is any excuse for guys getting personal foul penalties at any point in the game and getting engaged with things that are not beneficial to our team, and when you get one of those, you affect everybody on the team.
"From and injury standpoint, Alex Leatherwood has a twisted ankle, and we think he will be okay. Damien Harris has what they are calling a mild concussion, and they were checking out his neck, but that seems to be okay. Deionte Thompson has a bruised knee, which doesn't seem to be a significant injury and probably could have put him back in the game, but we didn't do it."
On Tua Tagovailoa's performance
"I thought he played pretty well. I think he was 18-for-22. For a guy that most people thought shouldn't play in the game, I thought he responded really well by taking the challenge and going out there and doing what's best for his team. All of our fans, they come to the game to see him play. I think that's fair that he goes out and competes like every other player on our team. I thought he did a good job in the game. We had a little slow start on offense, but once we got going, I thought we did a pretty good job. He made some good reads. He made some good throws. The plan was to also play Jalen (Hurts), somewhere between 12 and 15 plays in the game because he was ready to play at some point in the game with the good players, so that hopefully having not played for several weeks we could get a little rust off. He did a good job, and I think that will be helpful to him coming back and being able to develop confidence as well."
On Tua breaking AJ McCarron's single season touchdown record
"AJ McCarron was a fantastic player for us here, a three-year starter, won a couple championships, I think. his accomplishments will always be appreciated, but it is always nice to see our players who are performing well get recognized for what they do. Tua's had a really good year, and we are excited for him that he has set a record or broke a record or whatever. I'm sure the first thing he would tell you is that if it wasn't for his teammates, he wouldn't have the opportunity to do that, so I think it is something that we all share, that the whole offense should share in terms of the quality job that the offensive line does and the receivers and everybody involved."
#14 Deionte Thompson, DB
On what they were seeing in the second half compared to the first
"We were just seeing a lot of movement, kind of window dressing. We kind of got our eyes out in the wrong place at times and just did not fill our gaps. They did a good job with window dressing and got our eyes in the wrong place. When our eyes are on the wrong place, they made big plays." Â
On not panicking in the second half
"No sir, we didn't panic. We just went to the sideline, listened to the adjustments and calmed down. I feel like a lot of guys had to refocus, just because we were seeing different motions and different formations coming out, and it was just new to us. Once we got adjusted, we started playing just fine."
#73 Jonah Williams, OL
On the unconventional win, but still getting the victory
"Yeah, I think that there is obviously a lot to improve from and take away from the game. I think we didn't go out with the right attitude, right mindset, but fortunately we were able to correct it in the second half and pull away."
On what Citadel was doing well
"I think the nature of their offense, being triple option, they are a team that wants to get three or four yards. In the process of doing that, they eat up a lot of the clock. I'm not sure what our time of possession was, but I think it was in the ballpark of two-to-one, maybe three quarters in the first half, and when you play a team like that you can't make mistakes. You can't fumble the ball. We had three-and-out, limited possessions early, and in that type of game that became our issue. We weren't taking advantage of those limited possessions we had, but I'm really proud of the way we came out in the second half and pulled away."
Head Coach Brent Thompson
On what the locker room was like after the game
"Well, you know we're a little dejected there. I thought we played a great first half, and our players believed we had the best first half we could have had. We could have hung in there a little longer. I told them in there we did a lot of great things in the second half. Unfortunately, we didn't get off to a great start in the second half. We had some really good momentum. We had that turnover."
On if he was surprised on how successful the offense was today
"This is a different team this year. We're older than we were last year. It's just a little bit of a different game plan there. We have different personal packages and things we learned from the Clemson game that we took into this game to help us out."
#16 Brandon Rainey, QB
On his thoughts on how the game went
"It's a great moment. I'm proud of this team; we're not scared of anybody. I think we came out and played our butts off."
On his thoughts going in tied at halftime
"We were in here. We were excited to have a chance to play the No. 1 team in the nation, Alabama. I hope people now start to give us a little more respect. We were just happy to be in that position."
#18 Dante Smith, RB
On scoring touchdowns in Bryant-Denny Stadium
"It's pretty exciting. I can't do it without my teammates. On the two I scored, people made key blocks for me so the credit goes to my teammates."
On the team's motivation
"When you listen to people talk about football, it's always about Alabama. That puts a chip on our shoulder. We just want to come out here and do what we can. We're not going to back down from anybody, so we just want to come out and play our game, play our brand of football."
