Alabama head coach Nick Saban spoke to the media earlier this afternoon after the Tide wrapped up its Wednesday practice. Alabama is set to battle the Arkansas Razorbacks on Saturday inside of Bryant-Denny Stadium.
Here is what coach Saban had to say during his press conference.
Opening statement
We’re playing a great team. They’re tough. They hit you in the mouth every chance they get. I think we need to have the right mindset in playing a game like this. I think we need to have the right mindset in preparation and practice, how we practice, how physical we need to be in terms of how we play in the game. That’s everybody’s choice. If you don’t have that choice, you need to change the way you think because that’s the kind of game this is going to be.
We’re excited about playing at home. But we’re also trying to be excited about how we prepare, how we play, how we practice, the things that we need to do to get ready to play a tough team and a good opponent in the SEC. That’s kind of where we’re at.
On the Arkansas defensive front, more specifically John Ridgeway.
I think their front is really, really good. They’re active. They’re physical. They’re hard to block. They do a good job of rushing. They do a great job of executing the defense. He’s physical. Hard to block.
They play a three-down scheme a lot, so it’s challenging for those guys to be able to put enough pressure on the passer as well as stop the run and they do a really good job and he’s a big key to it.
On center Darrian Dalcourt’s and left guard Javion Cohen’s availability on Saturday.
They’ve been practicing every day.
On how the team has practiced this week.
Yesterday was OK. Today we got a lot of guys who had the “poor me’s”, whatever that means. So you get into your feelings, you don’t do things the way you need to do them to have success, and that way you don’t create good habits. That’s not a good thing and that’s not something we can accept and we’ve got to do a better job of it.
On what this year’s group of seniors has meant to the program and if any of them plan to return next season for their covid year
We haven’t discussed that. We usually don’t talk about that until the end of the season. We’ll use the same procedure this year.
This group has been a really good group. It’s not a big group. But they’ve played a lot of games here and had a lot of success in their career here and they’ve contributed in a very positive way. I’m proud of this group. A lot of these guys have graduated or will graduate either this semester or next. So I’m really pleased and proud of the way they’ve progressed. There’s a lot of guys in this group that have come a long way and there’s a lot of guys that are going to be very successful in life, which is the goal of the program.
On his impression of right tackle Damieon Geroge
Damieon has done a really good job. He played really good in the last game. Play good the week before. So we’re pleased with the progress he’s making and if he continues to play well we’re going to play him. Chris (Owens) plays two spots now, so it’s really difficult for him to get reps. We feel like we have six starters now and we’ll decide each week what gives us the best chance to be successful when we go into the game.
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