TRANSCRIPT: What Nick Saban Had To Say On Wednesday Ahead Of Opener

TUSCALOOSA, AL — It's one day closer to kickoff for the Alabama Crimson Tide's 2022 season opener against Utah State on Saturday and head coach Nick Saban gave a range of updates and insights during his regular press conference Wednesday afternoon.

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Kickoff against Utah State (1-0) is set for 6:30 p.m. at Bryant-Denny Stadium. The game will be broadcast on the SEC Network.

Here's a transcript of the coach's comments on Wednesday:

Opening at home vs. neutral site

We always played neutral site games in the past because of scheduling issues and it was a great experience for fans for a long time and we always were able to get a really good opponent to play. But we kind of changed philosophies and trying to get home-and-home games so that we could play really good opponents home and away.

We think that Utah State is a good opponent and it's great to always play at home. I know the players look forward to it.

I think one of the things you got to realize about playing at home, it's not about playing at home. It's not the crowd. It's not anybody else that's going to help you play good. It's still about what you do, how you need to play, how you need to go out there and execute.

So I know the players are always excited about playing at Bryant-Denny Stadium and we're always excited about it. And hopefully, this game helps us see where we are so that we can make the improvements we need to make throughout the season to be the best team we can be.

Injury updates

No different. I'm not going to give an injury report in here every week, okay?

When those guys are ready to play, we'll let you know. So they all had significant injuries. Some of them are practicing them in black shirt jerseys and there's no real timetable for knowing when they're going to return.

Protecting the football against a team that creates turnovers

I think one of the big things about first games and playing a team like this, this team creates a lot of negative plays. They do a really good job of stunting and pressuring. That's been kind of their forte. They were one of the leading teams in the country last year in tackles for loss and creating negative plays, so you got to be patient.

And I think when you get a hat on a hat, you've got a really good chance to make plays against them. But that's always the challenge. And they've got good players. They play hard, they're physical, they're tough.

So I think our guys are anxious and ready to go and see how we go out and execute against what we think is a pretty good defensive team.

Cornerback Khyree Jackson's size

I think we have two guys that have sort of rare length. Him and Eli [Ricks] both have really rare length to be as athletic as they are.

But you got to use the length to your advantage. You got to use the length to help you jam people. You've got to use the length to help you ... swat balls. And I think Khyree — both guys — are certainly learning how to do that and trying to do that to their advantage.

But I think that kind of size is a little unique to the position. I think there's a lot of bigger receivers now, so having guys like that is really kind of a good thing in the long run.

Bryce's Young's comfort level in second year as starter

We've got a lot of new receivers and I think our coaches have done a really good job of putting these guys in positions and roughing and repping what we're going to do so that Bryce feels comfortable, but they feel comfortable and people on the same page relative to the routes that we run, the reads that we make and where the ball is going to go.

I think anytime a player has a year under his belt, he's going to feel more comfortable. I think [Young] is really comfortable and setting the protections, understanding what the defense is going to do, recognizing what they're going to do.

I think he gained a lot of experience doing that last year.

He handled it really well last year, but I think he's even more comfortable with it this year.

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