Everything Nick Saban said on Monday of Mississippi State week

Nick Saban and the Alabama football are coming off a disappointing last-second loss to the Tennessee Volunteers. Anytime the Crimson Tide takes a loss, the entire college football world gets turned upside down for at least one week.

On Monday, coach Saban continued his weekly routine of holding a press conference to put the finishing touches up on the previous week and to look ahead to the upcoming matchup.

Coach Saban is still obviously disappointed in his team’s performance last weekend and even took some responsibility upon himself and the other coaches.

Here is everything that coach Saban said on Monday as the Crimson Tide prepare for Mississippi State to come to town.

Opening statement

“After watching the film, this was kind of a collectively loss by our team. I don’t think we played the way we wanted to play, for sure. We didn’t execute the way we wanted to play. We had a few great individual performances. Guys played extremely well. But we also had some guys that — it’s our expectation that we need as coaches to try to help them get to where they can play better. There was too many things that we did in the game.

“I mean, 17 penalties is just 130 yards of field position. Probably lost about 70 yards in field position on special teams, whether it was poor execution by a specialist or the mistake we made in trying to pick the ball up when it wasn’t a live ball. I mean, that’s 200 yards in the game, so that’s like two touchdowns, probably. Gave up explosive plays on defense, which is something that we had done a good job to that point of not doing. And the last five plays of the game, we didn’t execute. We can talk about running the ball but we dropped a pass, the clock would be running and we would be closer. We miss a ‘hot’ and don’t run the route right, the clock would be running and we would be closer.

“Mississippi State’s an outstanding team. I think they’re 5-2. Mike Leach is one of the most difficult guys offensively to try to defend relative to their offense. The quarterback, Will Rogers, does a great job of that. They’re one of the leading passing teams in the country. They’ve got a good receiving corps. I think they’re running the ball more effectively this year than maybe in years past. Their defense is very aggressive, create a lot of turnovers, do a lot of pressuring the quarterback. They’re good on special teams. They’ve got good specialists so it’s going to be a challenging game for us. And we’ll see how our players respond to the situation that we’ve created for ourselves.”

On if a specific penalty has been a problem this season

“We’ve been harping on pass interference, to keep our hands off of people. I do think in some cases we do a good job of guarding them. We’ve just got to do a better job of timing up the swat or whatever. Too many pre-snap penalties, false starts on offense. I think we had three in the game. And two of them were guys that they’re looking at the ball. They’re not even thinking about the clap or the snap count or whatever. Jumping offsides on defense, we had a couple of those.

“Those are the kind of penalties that are undisciplined, not focused, not looking at what you’re supposed to look at so we don’t have those issues. But they all put you behind the eight-ball. When guys are out there competing, sometimes we drive a guy to the ground and end up getting a holding call. You like that kind of aggressiveness. You don’t want guys to hold. We’re certainly not coaching that, but there are penalties sort of omission and then there are penalties that guys are just playing hard and trying to do the best they can and every now and then something bad happens. Easier to live with those than the others.”

On how undisciplined penalties are addressed the following week

“I think you’ve gotta do it in practice. I think you create all these habits in practice. I think we’ve gotta make players more accountable in practice for doing things correctly, paying attention to detail and doing the little things right. We can’t go hang ‘em up for doing this. They’re our players. We need to get them to understand what they need to do not to allow these things to happen and understand the consequences of what happens when you do it, and I think if you continue to do it consistently, maybe we need to play somebody else. There’s always a little fear that goes with respect and respecting what it takes to win. You also should know that, hey, my job could be in jeopardy if I don’t respect the things I need to do to win.”

On if he received an explanation for the non-targeting call on Bryce Young

“No, no. We turned the plays in. I’m sure the league office will look at it and make a determination. There’s two things that are an issue here: targeting but you’re also not supposed to hit the quarterback in the head. Last year against Texas A&M, Malachi (Moore) got thrown out of the game. The guy was out of the pocket, jumped up to block the ball and ended up, almost accidentally, hitting him in the head and got ejected from the game. So there’s really two things that should be looked at.”

On how the defense can improve on not allowing explosive passing plays

“Well, we’ve limited them all year long. We’ve had less explosive plays this year than we’ve had all year. We certainly don’t wanna give them up. They did a good job of taking those wide splits and creating some matchup things because of the wide splits. So guys gotta play with better focus, better leverage, gotta be able to cover people better. I mean, it’s as simple as that. They are our players. We think they’re good players. We think they’re capable. They need to play with good technique and good focus on the little things that help you make those plays.”

On what he expects to see from the team leaders following the loss

“Look, I think that our players all wanna win, and regardless of how everybody feels, we feel worse. The players are out there competing. They’re playing hard. Maybe not always playing smart, maybe making too many errors that we need to fix. And as coaches, we need to help them fix them, teach them. They need to learn from the lessons that – learning occurs best when you make a mistake. But you’ve gotta take advantage of that. And I think it’s important for our players to get that.

“It seemed like we had maybe – you wanna have great energy and you wanna be loose. I thought we were tight, especially starting the game. Coming out of the locker room, our players always chant. They weren’t chanting. I said, ‘Why aren’t you guys chanting? What’s up with that?’ It’s not that they don’t wanna do it, it’s not that they’re not trying. I just think we’ve got to place our focus in the right place and our psychological disposition in the right place so that we can – look, when you compete, it’s fun to compete when you play the next play.

“It’s no different than playing a pickup basketball game, aight. He’s got the ball, I’ve gotta guard him. I’ve got the ball, I’ve gotta beat him. That’s how you play, that’s how you compete. You have fun. Sometimes he wins, sometimes you win. But you’re having fun doing it and you’re competing. That’s what’s important. And you can’t worry about the outcome. You can’t sit there all tensed up because you’re afraid the guy’s gonna shoot a three on you. You’ve gotta play the play and then go play the next play if he does make a three. It’s so much more fun that way.

“Not looking at the scoreboard, not worrying about results, not being fearful of what’s gonna happen if something bad happens or if we lose a game. Just go play, compete, and then when the game’s over and we do that and do it well as a collective group, we can live with the results. So that’s what it’s our job, my job to help these players get to that point.”

On trusting the players to ensure more discipline and how the coaches can help

“It’s both. It’s both and everybody responds differently. I think you’re exactly right. But we can’t continue to tolerate guys that aren’t doing the things they need to do to be successful. Nobody is entitled to a position. Everybody’s earned the position they’re in by showing they have the capability and ability to do it on a consistent basis. And that’s something you have to continue. And the grind of the season, being the middle of the season — a little bit hurt or tired or whatever — you can’t lose your focus on doing the things you need to do to continue to improve and get better because other people are looking at your flaws too.

“So I told the players a little story about the carpenter who has a special light that finish carpenters see that the wood is exactly what he wants it to be. He’s looking for flaws in the wood. Well, people are looking for flaws in you whether it’s how you block or how you tackle or how you cover, whatever it is you do. How we cover punts, whatever it is we do and we have to be aware of that and know we have to correct these things so they don’t become issues for us in the future.”

On Bryce Young protecting himself from taking big hits

“Look, Bryce is a competitor, and he’s a great competitor. And he’s a good leader on the team. And we need to do a better job of protecting him, and we certainly don’t want him to get hit. Can we do that 100 percent? Sometimes he scrambles and runs and gets hit, but he’s a competitor. And he’s one of the guys that is a real warrior on our team when it comes to doing whatever he needs to do to try to help the team win, whether it’s scramble, sit in the pocket for the last minute and try to deliver a ball and maybe take a hit because of it.

“We don’t want that to happen and we need to do a better job so it doesn’t happen. But can we eliminate it happening and will he ever be a guy that doesn’t do everything he can to help the team be successful and help that play have a chance to be successful? I don’t think so. I think that’s why he is what he is. That’s why he is a great player, because of that. So I don’t know how to change that.”

On if he thinks pass interference should be reviewable or not

“Look, my big thing is just consistency. Call it the same for everybody. It’s hard to define exactly what you can and can’t do. I would rather see that happen. In the NFL, they defined exactly what you could and couldn’t do, and it’s a really, really difficult judgment call but you knew exactly what you could and couldn’t do. I think that would be beneficial. I don’t know whether it should be a reviewable call or not. I mean, if we make everything reviewable, why would you call anything? I mean, we reviewed one of the hits on Bryce and it wasn’t… So I don’t know.”

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Story originally appeared on Roll Tide Wire