Alabama Friday football news & links

T he Alabama Crimson Tide concluded practice last night for the Florida International University Golden Panthers. Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban praised FIU’s young program this week.

“I think FIU is a young team and has a lot of players coming back,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said. “They made a significant amount of improvement from year one to year two. They have a lot of players coming back. They actually have a lot of speed, a lot of team speed. They are a wide-open throw the ball vertical passing game. The quarterback is back and he had a good year last year. Their receiver No. 4 (T.Y.) Hilton is as good a player as anybody in the country. I think he was way up there in all-purpose yards or led the country in all-purpose yards last year. They haven’t had a game and there are some differences in depth chart from last spring to last year to where it is right now. I think they might have had some guys out last year that are going to come back and play, especially defensively. This is one of those games that we need to focus on what we need to do to improve as a team. It’s going to be very important that we make a significant improvement from week one to week two.”

You can read more about Hilton in the links section below.

Saban also talked about FIU’s program building efforts.

“I think 90 percent of their team is from Florida; maybe more than that, I did not count it all up,” Alabama’s football coach said. “They have good players. They have a lot better players than what you think they have. They have lots of team speed and they have made significant progress, as I mentioned from year one to year two, and they are going to have a better team this year in my opinion. So, this is going to be a completely different challenge for us. They have a lot of great skill guys, a lot of speed on the field. They are wide open, spread out all over the place, guys getting the ball that can run with it in space. It will be a challenge for us defensively and they’ve got really good team speed on defense. I do think this is a program that can be successful.”’;

On to the links:
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