Saban: ‘Future is now’ after ‘fixable’ Tide errors
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Alex Scarborough, ESPN Staff Writer
Alabama coach Nick Saban expressed a sense of urgency on Monday as his team looks to rebound from a 10-point loss at home to the Texas Longhorns on Saturday.
“The future,” Saban said, “is now.”
The Crimson Tide, which dropped seven spots to No. 10 in the Associated Press Top 25 college football poll, will play at South Florida on Saturday, but Saban spent most of his Monday news conference looking back at the loss to the Longhorns, which snapped what had been the longest active home winning streak in FBS at 21 games.
“I don’t think it’s any huge secret or anything that we did not execute on a consistent enough basis,” Saban said.
He harped on a number of problem areas: too many turnovers, too many penalties, too many mental errors on defense and not enough pressure on the opposing quarterback.
On defense, Alabama didn’t sack the quarterback once, missed seven tackles and gave up six catches of 20 or more yards. On offense, the Crimson Tide averaged only 3.06 yards per rush and allowed pressure on the quarterback on 46.2% of dropbacks.
Quarterback Jalen Milroe threw two long touchdown passes — a 49-yarder to Jermaine Burton and a 39-yarder to Amari Niblack — but he also had two costly interceptions.
The offense as a whole, Saban said, seemed to lack an identity and was “too hit-or-miss” in terms of generating big plays.
Saban said the focus is “100% on how we get it turned around,” putting the onus on the coaches as well as the players.
“I think all these things are fixable,” he said. “We have good players.”
Saban compared the loss to a test early in the semester — one that they didn’t “grade out well” on.
“So what are we going to do to get a better grade?” Saban asked. “I would be shocked if this team didn’t respond in a positive way.”
Alabama will resume SEC play on Sept. 23 at home against No. 17 Ole Miss.
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Jake Trotter
A UAB football player stabbed two of his teammates Saturday morning at the football facility ahead of the Blazers’ home game against USF, a university spokesperson told ESPN.
The suspect has been arrested, and both injured players are in stable condition after being taken to UAB hospital. The school has not released the names of any of the players involved.
UAB’s game against USF began as scheduled at 3 p.m. ET.
A UAB official said an investigation is ongoing.
“UAB’s top priority remains the safety and well-being of all of our students,” the school said in a statement.
Ohio State wide receivers Carnell Tate and Jeremiah Smith are not expected to play against Rutgers on Saturday due to lower-body injuries, sources told ESPN’s Pete Thamel.
Tate will miss his third straight game. Smith played in last week’s win over UCLA but missed the second half after being seen limping before halftime. Both are considered day-to-day, sources said, ahead of a potential return next week against rival Michigan.
On Tuesday, coach Ryan Day would not rule out either wide receiver but also did not want to go into specifics on their availability.
“Our policy is we don’t discuss specifics on injuries, and once you start going down a little bit here, a little bit there, you can create a problem,” Day said. “So for a number of reasons, we don’t discuss those things.”
Smith leads the Big Ten and ranks third in the nation with 10 touchdown catches while ranking third in the conference in receiving yards per game (90.2) and second in catches per game (6.9). Tate is fifth in the Big Ten with 88.9 receiving yards per game.
Brandon Inniss started in place of Tate against UCLA and led No. 1 Ohio State with six catches for 30 yards during a 48-10 win.
The 5-5 Scarlet Knights are looking to beat Ohio State for the first time in their 11th try since joining the Big Ten in 2014.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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