By Hunter Ford
Nick Saban demands consistency from his players, and when he doesn’t get it, he will talk about it, consistently.
In Saban’s Monday press conference, the Tide coach said every player he has reviewed from game footage has shown signs of greatness. The one thing holding them back, Saban said, was consistency, especially in practice.
Saban said his defensive backs gave up four big pass plays in last week’s 31-6 victory over Colorado State. “Most of that is technique and understanding your assignment,” he said.
Saban said there were lapses of focus and concentration on the offensive side of the ball as well. He said both units would do well to, “Keep it simple. What’s my assignment? What am I supposed to do?”
Asked about offensive play calling in the Colorado State game, Saban said mental errors and consistency on the players’ part had a lot to do with plays not working well. He said offensive calls work better when players focus and execute better.
Ole Miss is next up for the Tide and the Rebels are riding a five-game winning streak into Tuscaloosa. Second-year coach Hugh Freeze has his team looking strong in its past few outings. The Rebels won their final two games last season, beating Mississippi State and then defeating Pittsburgh in the BBVA Compass Bowl in Birmingham. This season, the Rebels have defeated Vanderbilt, Southeastern Missouri, and Texas.
The 44-23 victory over the Longhorns, September 14, in Austin, is part of the reason Texas coach Mack Brown is on the hot seat. Ole Miss had a bye last Saturday.
Saban called Ole Miss, “A really, really good team.” Rebel quarterback Bo Wallace has thrown for 648 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions, with a 64 percent accuracy rate. But Saban said there is no comparing the Rebels with Texas A&M.
“Their (Ole Miss) primary personnel is three wide receivers and a tight end,” he said. “They have a really good running game.”
The Rebels have been very balanced, statistically, averaging 250 yards per game rushing, with 240 yards per game passing. They average 38 points per game and will visit Tuscaloosa as the No. 21 team in both the coaches and AP polls.
Injury Report
Reserve safety Nick Perry is the only player who will not practice this week, according to Saban.
Five Tide starters sat out the Colorado State game: Wide receivers Kevin Norwood and Amari Cooper; cornerback Deion Belue; defensive back Jarrick Williams; and offensive guard Anthony Steen. Saban said Belue was particularly missed in the Tide secondary because of his experience and skill.
Saban’s clubs are in the closet until spring:
Professional golfer Zach Johnson visited the Tide athletic facility Monday, and had a brief visit with Saban. Asked by the media if Saban was seeking assistance with his “short game,” Saban said, “I’m not working on any game, but the Ole Miss game. Not that my short game doesn’t need it. But I can worry about that in March.”
Cooper, Norwood, Steen and Belue all back, that’s a big one. Roll Tide.
You gumps need to start boycotting ESPN because they have your golden boy AJ McCaron ranked as only the fourth best quarterback in the SEC, behind Mettenberger!
http://espn.go.com/blog/sec/post/_/id/70752/ranking-the-top-10-sec-quarterbacks
Luckily for Mettenburger they dont take criminal records into account when they rank the qbs. By the way what is Zach’s record vs. Bama? Oh yeah 0 &choke. Speaking of lsu, what contribution have you given this week to help in ensuring a victory since it is “we” right? Obsessed with UA corndog reply in 3.2.1……
@LMAO
Boycotting ESPN? I like ESPN. What the heck are you talking about?
Wait, are you still upset about Alabama beating Texas A&M? Is that what this is about? If not, I just don’t understand. I get that you’re trolling and all, but if nothing else Mettenberger has played a full third more football than McCarron this year. Did I say either is better? Did anyone say ESPN is wrong? I’m trying to apply logic here but it gets lost in the cloud of hate.
Wow. I just can’t believe how obsessed you are. You follow Alabama more closely than I do.
Maybe at the end of the season Mettenberger will still be ranked higher as a QB than McCarron in spite of losses to Alabama and Texas A&M? I’ll still watch ESPN, though.
The crazy thing to think about is if Mettenberger hadn’t been kicked out of Georgia. The Bulldogs would be stacked at QB. That game will be interesting. Do you have a comment on that, or on the article here about the defending national champs preparing for Ole Miss?
Of course not.
Well let me see if I can “slowly” explain it to you Conduit so that you can understand.
First of all the comment about the gump nation boycotting ESPN was a “tongue in cheek” (have some one explain that expression to you or go look it up if you don’t what it means) comment because of all the previous comments from gumps on this blog about how great McCarron is and how you and the others here thought he out played and out performed Johnny Manziel in the only big game of the short season so for and the only SEC game by both teams to date. I mean if in the minds of all bama fans (or at least the one’s, including you conduit, that took exception to my post expressing my opinion that I though Manziel had out performed McCarron despite his “teams” loss) McCarron is better than Manziel, then I thought you gumps would consider ESPN to have an irreverent attitude toward all things bama to have the gall to list McCarron, not just behind Manzel but as the fourth best QB in the league even behind Mettenberger. My reason for mentioning Mettenberger’s name in my comment was because of all the disparaging comments made about him by you gumps on this blog. I hope that clears it up for you Conduit so that you can get out of the clouds.
As for as your other comments, I am not obsessed with Alabama and I follow all of college football. I follow SEC football teams closer than I do teams of other conferences and I probably follow SEC West teams closer than I do SEC East teams. And I guess I follow the leading or potential leading teams in the SEC West (Currently LSU, Alabama, Texas A&M and Ole Miss) mainly because that’s which teams most of the articles are written about. As to you comment that I probably follow Alabama more closely than you do, I have not idea. But being a huge college football fan I probably follow a lot of teams closer than some of the fans of that team. So that comment may say more about you than it does about me. But just the fact that because of my post on here, you think I follow bama more than you or that you would assume I only post on bama sites shows how self absorbed and egotistical you gumps are.
As for as a comment on this article, its just another example of how nothing is ever Saban’s fault, its always the player fault because of…. how did he say it….”mental errors and consistency on the players’ part” ….or….because of not using the correct “technique and understanding your assignment”. Excuse me but I thought it was the coaches responsibility to design practices to teach (coach) the players the proper technique and assignments and to drill (practice) them in the execution of those techniques and assignments so that they could reduce mental errors and perform on a consistent basis in the games. I mean if a player doesn’t use the right technique or understand his assignment or lacks consistency and has mental errors, isn’t the coach partially to blame? Could it be he failed in his coaching of that player, didn’t recruit the right players or made bad decisions on what players to put on the field at a particular time/play?
I think Saban must be the only coach that has never called a bad/wrong offensive play against another teams defense or has never called a bad/wrong defensive call against the play run by the other team.
I thought about reading all this. Really.
I’m just kidding, I didn’t even consider it.
Give it a rest, LMDAO – the season is only 1/4th over. In the end, who cares which QB has all the stats? AJ has the rings.
21-0 takes a long time to get over, doesn’t it?
And there is still PLENTY of time for CLM to be CLM and make some boneheaded call on the sidelines that will screw Mett’s head up for the rest of his life, just like JJ and all the other QB’s he’s managed to ruin.
If he doesn’t, Cam is sure to do it for him. He hasn’t been dismissed from all his prior positions for nothing.
21-0 was two years(seasons) ago, the only ones still self absorbed about it is you gumps.
Hey dipshit, who cares what the hell ESPN thinks. The SEC rankings have AJ second behind JFF with Murray 2nd and MethHead 4th. But more importantly the Heisman Pundits who have correctly picked the Heisman winner and every one of the invitees to New York for the entire 8 years of their existence, have AJ #3 in the Heisman race. Don’t think we have to worry too much about Methinmolestor in respect to the Heisman. Oh yeah, how many BCSNC rings does MethHead have? ——- Crickets!!! RTR!
LMAO. exactly. LAMO…… This High powered offense has racked up these numbers against what teams? Good luck with Georgia this weekend. You guys are gonna see some competition finally. 21-0 still has that ring to it doesn’t it?
ROLL TIDE !
Alabama “claimed” that 21-0 victory over LSU for a national title…
Roll Tide.
More self absorbed bama fans. 21-0 was two seasons ago. Get over yourselves already! LMAO
I guess gumps are gonna gump.
RIP to Paul Dietzel who passed away at the age of 89 this week. He’s a guy who should be a legend in Corndog country but in his day he was as hated as Nick Saban is now. I met Dietzel once back in the 80’s and he seemed like a real good guy. Maybe that’s why he left LSU. Too classy for that place.
You’re right. Wow, it was two seasons ago. Hard to remember the last time we lost a championship, really.
I’m claiming both of those. Maybe we shouldn’t. I don’t know, I can’t tell which championships we get to claim. But I had great seats for both of them and the winner seemed pretty clear to me. Roll Tide.
Actually I think he left LSU ’cause Bear was in the middle of a 17 game winning streak against them. Bwaa Haww Haww! However, condolences to his family. RTR!
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