
Football vs. Tennessee Postgame Quotes
10/23/2021 11:01:00 PM | Football
Alabama Head Coach Nick Saban
Opening statement
"Well, it's a great victory for our team. It's always great. It's a great rivalry to me, to us, to a lot of people in the state of Alabama. I think our crowd was fantastic out there; they had an impact on the game, especially the student section.
"We did some things that we need to get fixed obviously. Lost a couple coverages on defense, fumbled the ball at the nine-yard line, got a punt blocked, roughed the punter on 4th and 30. Just some things that we shot ourselves in the foot with. I think those things really need to get corrected, or they're going to cost us at some point.
"I told the players they have a bye week coming up. We have a real team we have to play in two weeks. We need to get some rest. We need to recover, but we also need to focus on what we need to do to finish the season and get some of these things corrected.
"Obviously, we want to focus, but I'm not going to be negative about the game, I'm not going to be negative about the team. [I'm] really positive about the way they went out there and kept competing in the game even though it wasn't perfect. We made the plays we needed to make to win the game. I'm excited. I'm happy. I'm pleased. There are just some things we need to do better. I still think we shouldn't need to be humiliated to go out there and play the way we're capable of. We should be a team that works to beat wants to beat other teams because of who we are, what our DNA is, what our disposition is, what we want our identity to be, and we have to keep working on that.
"It was a great win for Alabama. It was a great win for the state, the people in the state, and all of our fans and supporters, and our players."
Tennessee Head Coach Josh Heupel
Opening Statement
"Disappointed with the outcome of the football game. Obviously, I felt like going into the fourth quarter we had an opportunity to compete and find a way to win the football game. I'm proud of the effort and strength that our guys played with all night long. We just didn't play smart enough, in particular on the offensive side of the ball.
"I thought after the first quarter, give credit to Alabama's defense too, we did things that hurt us and put us in a tough position. Obviously, we didn't find a way to run the football effectively and efficiently throughout the course of the football game. At times, we operated well in the passing game, just not consistently enough in that part of the football game.
"Special teams did a really nice job. The guys competed and played extremely well.
"Defensively, it just felt like in the fourth quarter, being on the field that long, they just ran out of gas in the fourth quarter. Defensively there were a lot of things I was proud of throughout the course of the game."