What Nick Saban Had To Say After Tide's 55-0 Win Over Utah State

TUSCALOOSA, AL — The No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide (1-0) cruised to an easy win over Utah State Saturday night in front of more than 98,000 people in Bryant-Denny Stadium.

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Here's a look at what head coach Nick Saban had to say following the 55-0 win to kick off the 2022 campaign.

Opening Statement:

I was really pleased with the way the players approached this game. I thought we had good energy.I thought we had good intensity, we had good preparation throughout the week. [Utah State was] sort of challenging with some of the things that they do and I thought when the first group was in there, they did a really good job ... we had one penalty.

We missed some things which we need to clean up. But for the most part, I thought the first group did a really, really good job in this game. It was a good team win. I thought the offense played well. The defense played well. Except for the snafu at the end when we got a punt blocked, the special teams were solid.

But there are things that we need to improve on and get better at and players need to understand the importance of sustaining the kind of intensity, whether it's in preparation, practice, so that we can build and improve and improve as a team because — no disrespect to Utah State, their players played hard — we're going to play teams that are much more physical and aggressive and talented than what they are, so we're going to have to do things correctly and it's going to be important that guys get to understand that.

I told all the young players on the team, I said, "if you get an opportunity to play, are you going to be able to take advantage of that? Are you prepared to go out there and take advantage of doing your job, knowing what to do?" They go out there and get five or six penalties, wrong formations, holding calls.

Defensively, we played a lot of players. They made some mental errors, too, on some of the things. It's a good experience for them. But I think the biggest thing is the lesson that they learned in terms of how you have to prepare for a game so you can take advantage of an opportunity when it comes to you.

But anyway, we got to play a lot of players. I wish we could even played more, but we're trying to get guys experience to make our team better and that was the number one goal. And we started subbing guys in later in the game.

Assessment of the running game on offense

I look at how we ran the ball more as, okay: We had an explosive run from Jahmyr Gibbs. Bryce had an explosive run on a scramble. All right, but what was the down in and down out consistency, in terms of how we were successful at gain in three, four or five yards a crack? That wasn't what it needed to be. So that's something that we need to improve on.

Depth chart shakeups

What would lead you to think that I ever said anything that I wouldn't [rotate players at cornerback]? What leads you to believe that? I told you we had competition at corner. So what did I ever say to lead you to believe that they all wouldn't play in a game? ...

I said, there's a lot of competition at corner. I don't know who our best corners are, so we played them all in the game to see who would play the best. So, I'm just curious to know why you would be surprised by that?

Depth on offensive line

Look, guys, you guys need to get off the depth chart a little bit and forget about who started and who didn't.

[Emil Ekiyor] missed five days of practice leading up to the game and he only practiced two days. So, we wanted to play him in the game, but he hadn't practiced a lot, so we didn't want to play him too much and it's only fair to the other guy who started for the five days that he was out.

Emil is still the starting right guard. Now, if Emil didn't miss five days of practice, I'm not sure who would have started at left guard, because there's competition at every position, which is a good thing. My biggest issue is [the reaction to the depth chart in the media] and this may be the last time you ever get [a depth chart].

My biggest issue on our whole team was the day the depth chart came out. So you may have seen the last one. Y'all may have seen the last one. Because that's all you worry about.

We have competition on our team. We have good players. If I have in my mind seven or eight guys that can play winning football in the offensive line, I'm going to play them all.

I know you all think I'm crazy. That doesn't bother me at all ... doesn't bother me one bit.

Kobe Prentice gets first start true freshman

Kobe's done a really good job. He did a great job in the game. He's practiced really well. He's got an opportunity because JoJo [Earle] got hurt a couple, three weeks ago and he took advantage of it. He's a bright guy. He's got really good speed. He's got really good hands. He's exactly what we look for to play in the slot and he's done a really, really good job.

The freshman receivers got to play — [Isaiah Bond], [Kendrick Law] — [Emmanuel Henderson, Jr.] is playing receiver, all those guys I think can develop into being guys that can help us this year. And Kobe's the guy that got the opportunity because somebody got hurt and he's certainly taken advantage of it and played very well.

Bryce Young's distribution to receivers

You don't really plan to throw the ball to a certain guy. The quarterback reads the defense and then he's going to throw it to one side or the other based on what the other team's doing.

... It's kind of like basketball. Can you determine who's going to have the hot hand and who's going to score the most points? You have different guys, sometimes based on them or where the other team plays. Well, the same thing happens at receiver and I'm happy that everybody got opportunities. From that standpoint, I'm very pleased and happy. But it's not like Bryce says, okay, I'm gonna throw the ball No. 11 this time, I'll throw it to No. 3 the next time, I'm gonna throw it to No. 7 the next time ... He reads the defense and then he throws it to the guy based on what the defense does.

So, that's how the ball gets distributed and we like for everybody to have production. I think that's a good thing and it's good for their growth and development and confidence.

Bryce Young in first game back after winning the Heisman Trophy

Bryce did a really good job in the game.

I think if you ask Bryce, he would tell you that he missed a couple things in terms of reading guys where he might have had his read.

But I thought he played really, really well. He managed the game really, really well. You know, I should have helped him out calling time out down there in the red zone because they were given a lot of blitz pressures and we were trying to maybe change the protection or something to make sure we could pick up the blitz and the shot clock got down there. He didn't want to have a bad play, so we got time out called one time, the next time we didn't.

But anyway, I thought he played really, really well. He's prepared well. His leadership has been phenomenal in terms of how he how he's helped other players around him grow and develop, so I can't be more pleased with his performance.

Jase McClellan sees action after injuries

I usually save my comments for the players until we watch the film and we like to reinforce positive performance.

I thought Jase did some really good things in the game but we also make corrections when guys don't do it things exactly the right way. To be honest with you, with all that's going on out there, I see guys make good plays, I see them make big plays. But sometimes, I don't see who's making the errors, whether we 're blocking the wrong guys or playing the wrong gaps on defense or whatever, which you see that very clearly in the film.

Jase played really well for us last year and he's certainly come back from his injury and done really, really well and it's good to see him get out there and be able to play again.

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