What Saban said about wild ending at Tennessee, the plan in closing moments

Nick Saban met with reporters for just over seven-and-a-half minutes Saturday evening after the 52-49 Alabama loss to Tennessee in Knoxville.

Here’s a transcript of what he said in the wake of the wild one in Neyland Stadium.

Opening statement

“I’ll tell you what I told the team. It’s a very disappointing loss. We didn’t answer the bell today. Obviously, there’s a lot to work to be done. Way too many penalties. We did too many things to help them. Gave up too many explosive plays. Had a major error on special teams that was totally unnecessary that gave them a score. Gotta give them a lot of credit. They did a nice job with their offense based on what we were trying to do on defense but we didn’t execute well enough. You have to give our players a lot of credit for fighting back and getting back into the game.

Wish we could do somethings a little different in the end and play a little better. Played way too soft at the end to let them go down the field 50 yards to get into field goal range. So I think the big thing our players need to do is to learn from this experience.

“I also told the players we can accomplish every goal that we had to start at the beginning of the season. There’s no room for error in the west but if we win out in the west, we win the west and go to the SEC championship game. The key to the drill is you have to learn from these experiences. You never improve if you can’t learn from the mistakes you make.”

“I thought Bryce played well in the game, made a lot of plays. Just didn’t get it done on defense when we had the chance.”

“On the drive where they tied the game, got a third-down penalty and a fourth-down penalty that led to their score to tie the game. Had an opportunity to get a little closer for the field goal at the end but didn’t get that done.”

What was the plan offensively on the final drive that ended with the missed FG?

“We were trying to move it closer and we thought they were blitzing and loading the box a lot and we thought we could make plays in the passing game. Jahmyr (Gibbs) had a chance to make the play. That’s the best thing we did all night. That’s how we thought we could get it closer. When I say that, I don’t mean we should have ran it instead of pass it at all. They were blitzing and we were in empty so we have to throw the ball hot and we didn’t do a good job of that.”

How did Alabama’s defense respond to Tennessee’s fast-paced offense?

“I don’t think the no-huddle offense was the issue for us. I think it was covering their receivers and allowing way too may big plays. They created a lot of mismatches. We were trying to play nickel so they were trying to get their best receivers on safeties and they did it a couple of times and we gave up big plays. We started dropping eight guys. That helped us in the second quarter. We did the same thing in the third quarter. We played some dime so we had better matchups against them so we made some good matchups in the game. Just gave up too many big plays. Even in the second half, we gave up big plays.”

How did Alabama handle the crowd and wild momentum swings?

“I thought the offense handled the crowd noise extremely well. We were able to go on the clap and the motion penalties that we had, a couple of them had nothing to do with … a guy moved with no clap. No nothing. Just, I don’t know why. But I think we handled the noise extremely well and they had a great crowd. And we changed the momentum in the game several times, we just weren’t able to take advantage of it with enough stops on defense.”

The pass interference flag that set up Tennessee’s game-tying TD?

“It’s hard to say when it’s down in the corner. I thought the guy made a good swat on the ball and we intercepted the tipped ball. We had another on third and six when we had good coverage on the guy. I think pass interference is one of the most controversial calls in college football right now. I’ve talked about it before but inconsistencies in how its gets called — not just one those calls but in all calls. Officials do the best they can and I’m not making negative comments.”

How did Bryce Young play today?

“I have total trust and confidence that he had practiced enough and he wasn’t going to forget how to play quarterback. He didn’t. Even though he wasn’t able to practice especially throwing the ball as much in the passing game, getting healthy so he could go out there and throw effectively was probably the most important thing. But I think our medical staff and training staff gave him the best opportunity to do it and obviously he came through and played really well tonight.’

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