Alabama football head coach Nick Saban looks ahead to South Florida matchup

How are we doing? Good. Well, the focus that we have is, you know, trying to get everybody to play to their very best ability, everybody play to *** standard, everybody buy into not just talking about what standard is, but what do I actually have to do to be able to accomplish that play, that prepare so that we can go take and play the games to that level and do it for 60 minutes in the game. And that's something that, you know, we've been talking about all week players have responded, you know, pretty well, you know, to it. Um I think the preparation has gone, you know, fairly well. So we just got to keep these guys, you know, focused on what they need to do. Not, obviously, the standard comes from here, motivation comes from out there and we would like for everybody to have pride in their performance. So their standard is something that's important to them and they're willing to do the things to invest in their future that they need to do so that they can be the best players that they can be and nobody can really have the poor ease about, you know, my circumstance, my situation, how I feel we lost *** game. None of that. I mean, don't waste the failing, do everything you can to try to improve and get better and that will help our team get better as well. Start over on the left chase. How do you think Jalen has done so far? Just in terms of reading and reacting to blitzes? Um, you know, the issue in the game was we, I think we only got sacked once on the blitz and the back cut, the, the linebacker and he got up and still blitz uh sacked the quarterback. Um The other issues were um really basically four man rush, three man rush. Um So I, I think that he has done, ok, I think that what we need to do as an offense is everybody's got to pay more attention to detail, you know, we can't give burden rabbits. So the other team knows when we're passing so they can tee off. All right. So all these little things sort of add up to create *** disadvantage for you if you don't get them fixed. And these are all things that, you know, our players need to understand and need to do so we can protect better and the quarterback can have *** better chance to operate Charlie. Hey, coach, uh last week you mentioned how continuity in the secondary was an issue because of the injured guys. Just have you seen the depth of that position, group kind of come along. Well, they've been good this week. They've all been able to practice and do what they can do. Now, this team is going to go fast, their fastball, fastball as fast as anybody in the country goes. So, you know, you probably can't, you know, sub on third down, you're gonna have to probably play with whoever's in the game. Um, so when we tried to do that against in the past, against teams like this, you know, we get caught with 12 guys on the field or we can't get them off the field when they make *** first down. So, um, we've been playing with those five guys. They've all not had any issues this week. So hopefully that will be beneficial in terms of practice reps, again, this communication and all that type of thing from *** recruiting standpoint. Uh What's the benefit and impact of going to *** market like Tampa during the season for *** game? Uh I think any time you play on the road and you play *** quality opponent, which I think these guys have made tremendous improvement in their team and the quality of the players and, and all that. I mean, it's *** game that's going to be on TV. It's *** good market for our fan base in Central Florida. So, uh I think it's all good and, um, but I think it's only good if you play good So, and I mean, image is something that you got to work to really have in terms of what I talked about before, in terms of standard how you play and the things that you do so that pride and performance is going to be important, no matter where we play, what's the key as *** coach. Uh to um basically let letting *** player develop or deciding that you make, need to make *** change in the position and give another player another opportunity. Uh, you know, I think everything is performance based and, um, you know, like I said before, and I said this to the team. If you want security at your position, then you have to play well, that, that's what get you security at your position. If you're not playing well, then we're going to evaluate, can anybody else play that position more consistently better, whatever, because everybody's trying, everybody's trying to give their best. Um, you know, people are sometimes critical of whatever but, you know, nobody takes *** loss harder than the players, nobody takes *** loss harder than the coaches because it's our blood sweat and tears that we put into it. And, um, we, we want to do it better and I think the players want to do it better, but we live in *** result oriented world and we have to live with the consequences of what we do. I mean, nobody plans on, you know, having *** wreck and hurting somebody, but yet that could create consequences for your future that are unbelievable. Uh So you don't do it on purpose. You try hard, you want to be the best that you can be. And I think that's the attitude that everybody should keep regardless of what your circumstances is or are because even if you have *** failing, you need to go work on taking advantage of the next opportunity that you have. And I don't know that I can truly answer your, your question as to when do you make those decisions? I think it's truly got to be based on someone's performance and how it's affecting everybody else on the team. We will go with Cody. Are there experiences from past seasons or lessons you've learned from past seasons that you can use this season when it comes to establishing and developing the offensive identity? Um Yeah, I think that, you know, we went through some struggles. I forget what year, maybe 2013, 14, 15, somewhere along there where, you know, we were struggling early in the season, we lost the Ole Miss early in the season. We were sort of struggling on offense, couldn't find an identity, eventually found an identity and had, you know, *** really good season. So you keep searching, I think you got to get the right combination of players, you got to get the right chemistry and everybody's got to do *** good job. I mean, I don't care what the identity is, it comes down to execution, whether it's running or passing or punning, it all comes down to your ability to execute. And we've had too many inconsistencies in execution. I mean, when, when you take drive stoppers, ok. We had six offensive penalties. Those are draft stoppers, two of those penalties took points off the board. We got sacked, five times sacks are drive stoppers, drop balls are drive stalkers. We only had one, you know, drop ball. So, um and turnovers are obviously drive stoppers, the other team gets the ball and you don't have it. So when you add all those up, you should be at *** much more efficient percentage than we were Saturday night, you can figure it out. So all those things come down to execution and people's ability to execute to eliminate that. So, um we can keep working on it after going over the film. What, what's led to the struggles in the intermediate passing game? Uh I'm sorry, what has led to the struggles in the intermediate passing game? 10 to 19 yards? That, that range. Look, when, when you have *** pass play, it's not designed to go five yards. It's not designed to go 10 yards. It's not designed to go 20 yards down the field. You have *** pattern and most patterns attack various levels and then you read the defense and you decide where should I throw the ball? Sometimes it's 20 yards down the field, sometimes you got to take the check down and it's *** five yard play. All right. So, um.