Nick Saban Talks Defense, Return Of Cameron Latu & More

TUSCALOOSA, AL — Saturday is drawing near for the top-ranked Crimson Tide as the 1-0 squad prepares to travel to Austin, Texas to face a familiar opponent in former Alabama offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian and his Texas Longhorns.

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Here's what Tide coach Nick Saban had to say on Wednesday ahead of the highly-anticipated 11 a.m. kickoff on Saturday.

OPENING STATEMENT

Coach [Paul "Bear"] Bryant had an old saying: "You never know what a horse can pull until you give them a heavy load."

We obviously have a huge challenge, pretty heavy load in terms of playing on the road against a good team and I think everybody needs to understand if you're going to pull the load, you got to prepare the right way. You got to work the right way. You can't make mental errors, got to be able to stay focused when you're playing on the road. You've got to overcome their emotions, their intensity, the crowd, all kinds of challenges. So we'll kind of see what we're ready to pull when we go out there and play on Saturday.

THE "HORNS DOWN" HAND GESTURE BEING A 15-YARD PENALTY

I have not addressed it with the team, but I appreciate you letting me know that.

We've got a lot of other things we need to really worry about, but I think that's a good thing for me to go over with the team. So I appreciate that.

TIGHT END CAMERON LATU RETURNING FROM INJURY

He's doing well, 100%, runs well, moves well.

He practiced quite a bit last week, [we] thought he needed another week of practice, so this will be his first game and it'll be a little different for him than some of the other guys who got to play last week, but from a health standpoint, we think he's ready to go.

CORNERBACK PLAY

I think everybody needs to focus on improvement.

Each week, there's new challenges, new things, new patterns, new things to match up — who can do that the best, who shows the most maturity, who can stay focused and who can play with the most consistency.

So that's always the challenge at every position.

PLAYING IN MIDDAY HEAT

We do just about everything we can.

We give the guys hydration tests and tell them on a daily basis: Are they fully hydrated? Do they need to be hydrated?

We use IVs for some guys who have really bad problems in terms of how much they sweat. It's 90 degrees here every day, so we're managing this every day.

[Heat is] not something that's new for us to have to deal with. But I do think that part of preparation is what you do off the field: how you hydrate, how you eat, how you sleep, how you rest. All those things are really, really important when you're getting ready to play in difficult circumstances, difficult conditions and the heat certainly creates a difficult circumstance, no doubt.

TEXAS OFFENSIVE LINE

They've got a couple young guys playing who are really good players. They've got a couple veteran players — a center and one tackle that are really good players.

They were very impressive last week in terms of the way they played, how they protected the quarterback, how they ran the ball effectively. I think they're much improved and really a good, solid unit, even though they've got two young guys there. The young guys are really good players.

LINEBACKERS IN COVERAGE

It depends. The linebackers are not running backs.

[Bijan Robinson], their No. 5, is probably a little better athlete than some of our guys that are going to be covering them, so they've got to do a great job in technique.

We've got to affect the quarterback so he doesn't have a lot of time to throw it.

Hopefully, if we can make them protect sometimes, we won't have to cover him. But [Robinson] is a good player.

And I've said it many times, tight ends and running backs are mismatched players because linebackers are bigger, more physical guys, and they've got to be really good athletes to be able to play in space to cover them. I think our guys have improved and I have confidence in our guys, but it'll be a challenge for them.

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