WATCH: Saban Discusses Utah State Ahead Of Season Opener

TUSCALOOSA, AL — Alabama football coach Nick Saban addressed media on Monday ahead of the Tide's season opener Saturday against Utah State in the friendly confines of Bryant-Denny Stadium.

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For longtime Alabama coach, however, the Aggies (1-0) are far from a pushover opponent to begin the 2022 campaign for top-ranked Crimson Tide.

Watch the link above and read the transcript of his comments on Monday below to hear what the coach had to say about the Tide's first test of the year:

"[There's] always a lot of anticipation, lot of energy and enthusiasm to play the first game and I think the focus for us needs to be on playing the best, setting a standard for how we want to play, how we want to do things, how we want to finish plays, how we want to execute. What is the identity of this team going to be?

I think there are lessons learned from a year ago when we didn't prepare right, we didn't practice the way I think we need to practice, to prepare. We didn't always play really well, so to be a more consistent team in terms of our ability to prepare and execute, I think is going to be critical for how we play not only in the opener, but how we progress throughout the season.

Utah State [head coach] Blake Anderson has done a really good job there. This team can play really in any conference and do well. They ended up a top 25 team a year ago. They won 11 games, beat a couple PAC-12 teams, beat Oregon State in the bowl game, and they've got like 12 starters back, quarterback's back, who's a really good player. They were one of the most effective passing teams in the country a year ago.

These guys are very aggressive on defense. They create a lot of negative plays, they get a lot of turnovers. They've got their specialists back.

So they had a game, obviously, that they beat Connecticut last week 31-20 and got off to a little bit of a slow start, but then played really well as the game progressed.

Now, this is really kind of about us and how we prepare to play and what we need to do against a really good opponent. So that's going to be the emphasis all week long for us.

Alabama will kick off against Utah State at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 3

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