The Alabama Crimson Tide defeated Michigan Saturday in Dallas with a strong performance from players Dee Milliner, A.J. McCarron and T.J. Yeldon. Here is what Alabama Football Coach Nick Saban said about the players in his post-game press conference. Comments via UA Media Relations:
On Dee Milliner’s performance:
“Dee Milliner is a very good player for us. He started for three years and has lots of experience. He’s been a good leader for us and set a good example. And I think this is his third interception for a touchdown, which it ties somebody’s record or something. But he did a really good job. We flip flopped corners. He played into the boundary. Deion played into the field. He adjusted to that. He’ll do whatever we need him to do as a team.We got beat a couple times on double moves really, really hard double moves. We beat them once on one. But they made two big plays on us and that’s something that we need to do a better job of in the future. But Dee is an outstanding player for us and hopefully will continue to play well throughout the year.”

On AJ McCarron’s performance:
“I thought AJ did a really good job for us. I think we’re capable of throwing the ball more effectively. That’s something that I think we need to work on. I don’t think it has anything to do with AJ. He just missed a couple big play throws. Made a couple of really good throws. I just think in the passing game we just need to clean it up, clean up the protection. We had too much leakage in the pocket. Work on the timing with the receivers. Because I do think we have some pretty good receivers this year. And if we’re going to be the kind of team we’re capable of, we’re going to have to be able to create balance on offense, because AJ’s really too good of a quarterback for us not to utilize his talents in throwing the football.”

On T.J. Yeldon’s performance:
“I think our offensive line, as I stated before, did a really good job in the game. We got a head on the hat. We had a good plan on how to run the ball against them and did a really good job of executing it. We knew T.J. was going to get a lot of opportunity in this game because Eddie’s coming off an ankle sprain, and we were just going to play Eddie, spot play him, play him on third down, start him in the game. We did that. Then we didn’t play him much after that. But I thought Jalston Fowler did a really good job when he was in there. T.J. did a really good job. I would give you a lot more if you wouldn’t say you couldn’t talk to him.”

On Jalston Fowler’s dual role:
“You know, because we don’t have a guy like (Brad) Smelley who did all those things for us last year, we had about three guys that shared those roles on our team. And Jalston did it quite a bit. He’s played H. He’s played fullback. He’s a good receiver. And he’s embraced both of those roles. But we still have a lot of confidence in him as a runner. I mean, he’s 250 pounds. He’s a load. Pretty good instincts as a runner and good hands as a receiver. So we want to play him in as many roles as we can.”

On the team’s performance despite the number of players with not as much playing experience as last year’s team:
“Well, I think our team needs to focus on improving. I’m proud of the way they played in the game today. There’s some positions on our team where we don’t have a whole lot of depth after all the guys we lost last year. We’re going to need to be fortunate at those positions to be able to maintain the same quality of play. We have some depth in the defensive line. We have some depth at linebacker. We have some depth at running back. We have some at receiver. But there’s other parts of our team where we don’t have a lot of depth and it’s going to be real critical for us to be able to stay healthy at those positions so that we can maintain the quality that we have. But I really appreciate the great job that our coaches have done and our organization has done to recruit. Everybody at Alabama recruits. Our president recruits. Our provost recruits. Mal Moore recruits. Our coaches do a good job. We have a great family of people, our fans, with their positive energy. And it was great out there that we had so many Alabama folks here today. I think that kind of positive energy and attitude contributes to us being able to recruit because of the great atmosphere our players know that they’re going to get to play in. And I think we do a good job program wise of supporting them personally and academically and have some pretty compelling statistics from that standpoint as well. And they get an opportunity to play. So we got a chance to play a lot of players tonight, and that was a good thing.”

9 thoughts on “HIGHLIGHTS: Video of Alabama vs. Michigan”

  1. I’d love to see a highlight of Kenny Johnson getting his first career reception as a walk-on. He jumped around like it was Christmas morning. Then he led TJ Yeldon into the end zone on the final score, making a first class block and taking his man totally out of the play. Then more Christmas morning excitement out of him. This is a fun team to watch.

  2. Looks like Auburn may be on track to hire Petrino after all. That was genius foresight on your part!

    1. I thought Michigan actually looked very good, especially when you look at the other top-ten teams in the AP.

      Alabama was simply that much better.

      Every year there are only 2-4 teams that really look like the best. Michigan wasn’t one of them, and Alabama was, and that’s what it’s all about. But I think Michigan still belongs in the top ten, particularly because of their defense and Denard’s long game was still strong.

      Take Alabama out and put another team in that game and think what it would have looked like. They played straight-up, they played hard, no trickery, hard tackles, I was impressed with Michigan.

      But Alabama was shocking. I knew they would be good, but it looked like a clinic, sugrical precision with an army rather than just 11 good players. The penalties are fixable (and a surprise to me), and the depth can’t be overestimated.

  3. the call i thought of watching t j yeldon saturday nite at cowboy stadium:

    the late great larry munson describing herschel walker running over bill bates:

    “my god, a freshman!”

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