By Ken Rogers
Alabama head coach Nick Saban always emphasizes the bigger picture instead of bogging down in the mundane stuff—you know, like winning and losing.
With his team on its second three-game winning streak of the season, the coach talked about raising the bar Tuesday night after practice.
“When you play that way, you set a little different standard for yourself,” he said. “Your standard of excellence and the high quality of expectation is actually a good thing because you should aspire to do a little more.
“Everybody has a comfort zone. Everybody in this room does. You take a little more risk, you expand your comfort zone. Some people don’t want to take a little more risk. There’s a lot of people in this world, they play in the shadows all the time. ‘If I’m not trying, I’m not failing.‘“
Saban said it’s much more difficult—but much more worthwhile—to try to do “the best you can do and be able to live with whatever those results are. ... Everybody doesn’t do that.”
Posted by Ken Rogers on 10/24 at 02:25 PM
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By Ken Rogers
Alabama’s challenge of beating No. 20 Tennessee got even tougher today when the university announced the suspensions of five prominent players. Starting guards Antoine Caldwell and Marlon Davis, running back Glen Coffee, cornerback Marquis Johnson and defensive back Chris Rogers were suspended for a violation of school rules involving “impermissible receipt of textbooks.“
The infranction was discovered on Thursday and the school immediately initiated an inquiry that is remains ongoing. The student-athletes were informed of the suspensions on Friday upon initial results of the inquiry. The university is still investigating and will release further details when it is completed.
“This is still very open-ended,“ athletic media relations director Doug Walker said before Saturday’s game.
“This is a situation that developed late this week and we are actively investigating,“ UA athletic director Mal Moore said. “These suspensions are a measure aimed at dealing with the facts as we know them at this time. While I cannot discuss the situation in great detail, I can assure you we will address it fully when we have completed this inquiry.“
Posted by Ken Rogers on 10/20 at 10:04 AM
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By Ken Rogers
Alabama head coach Nick Saban has twice described turnovers blamed on quarterback John Parker Wilson as “not winning football.“
The coach went over both plays during Monday’s news conference—Wilson’s fumble inside his own 10 against Florida State and the quarterback’s forced pass that was tipped and intercepted late in Saturday’s victory over Houston.
“I think you gotta be smart,“ Saban said. “The first read on that play was open and the decision should have been made to throw the ball to the guy. We create our own issues by starting to scramble when we really don’t have a big pass rush. Then when we get about three-quarters of the way scrambling we decide to throw it to the check-down—which would have been OK earlier in the down, but especially in that situation during the game you gotta be smart and make a smart decision and a judgment as to what we do. We certainly don’t want to give them the ball back there.
“So, there are those out there who can probably say ... we needed to get a first down in that situation to shrink the clock, that we should have ran it. And I agree with all those people. Because the pass didn’t work. They just didn’t have to make that decision before it didn’t work. If I’d have known what was gonna happen on the play, we would have ran it. So everybody that disagrees with us out there can rest assured that had I known, I’d have done exactly what they wanted us to do.“
The Florida State situation led to the Seminoles touchdown.
“It’s third down and 15, we’re backed up, looking at a three-man rush,“ Saban recalled. “Fundamentally you should never be running with one hand on the ball, scrambling with one hand on the ball. Guy strips it out of his hand. They dropped eight guys, we threw a vertical route, they cover it, throw it away or check down, get rid of it and we’ll punt.
If every offensive series ends with a kick — and maybe you’ve heard me say this before — whether it’s an extra point, a field goal or a punt, that ain’t all bad. ‘Cause all the rest of the stuff that happens isn’t worth a darn.“
Posted by Ken Rogers on 10/08 at 01:43 PM
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By Ken Rogers
Alabama defensive end Bobby Greenwood was at practice, but in a black (no-contact) jersey. Greenwood alternately walked and jogged the sidelines during a part of Tuesday’s workout.
Tide head coach Nick Saban said Greenwood was “very questionable” for Saturday’s game against Houston. Saban said Brandon Deaderick would play in place of Greenwood.
It’s another tough position for Alabama in terms of depth.
“We rotate three guys. Bobby plays both ends,“ Saban said. “Some of the younger guys are going to have to sub out and play a little bit more in this game, although we’ll be in sub a lot in this game probably-they’re probably 80%—three wide receivers or four wide receivers in the game.“
The injury kept Saban from fully celebrating the return of nose tackle Brian Motley, who had knee surgery the week before the season opener.
“He worked extremely hard to get back,“ Saban said of Motley. “He’s got good leverage. He’s got good lower body explosion. He’s got good quickness. He’s smart. And he’s certainly a guy that we welcome back and we need to come back.
“We’d like to get to where we had our five guys that we feel that are all kind of starters for us up front in a normal rotation, and as soon as we got Motley back, we lost Bobby Greenwood. So depth at that position has been critical for us all year.“
Posted by Ken Rogers on 10/02 at 04:15 PM
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