Alabama head coach Nick Saban walking to the podium. (Photo by Dylan Rubino)
Hoover, Ala.- The city of Hoover and the state of Alabama got what they were waiting for with Nick Saban coming to the podium Thursday afternoon.
To the standards of the Crimson Tide, it was a disappointing season going 11-2 overall and 7-1 in conference play. The tide won their first 11 games and ended the season on a two-game losing streak with the heart-breaking iron bowl loss to Auburn and the Sugar Bowl loss to Oklahoma.
Holding the crystal ball is something Crimson Tide fans, players, and coaches are used to. Saban sees a lot of differences in this years’ team with the changing of players.
“We have to reestablish our identity as a team at Alabama. It’s going to take every player to have a tremendous amount of buy-in for us to be able to do that,” Saban said.
“We’re basically an unproven team in some areas. There’s a lot of questions marks because of the players we lost and the players that we have coming in.”
Saban hasn’t had a quarterback battle in a while with former decorated starter A.J. Mccarron moving on to the NFL. Saban said that recent Florida State transfer Jacob Coker and senior Blake Sims will compete for the starting quarterback job. Saban mentioned there will be a lot of adjustments no matter who his quarterback is.
“I think every quarterback has to go through some sort of a process of development because three things that are critical for a quarterback is decision making, processing information quickly, and making good quick decisions,” Saban said.
The media here in Hoover picked Alabama to overwhelmingly win the SEC. At the end of the press conference, Saban poked fun at the media for picking the wrong SEC champion over the past years by saying, “Just to let you know, we’re evaluating you.”
The Auburn loss is something Alabama players are using as motivation to continue their recent run at success and motivate them to not let another loss like that to happen again.
Junior defensive back Landon Collins is one of those players using it as motivation. Being one of the leaders on the crimson Tide defense this season, Collins wants his teammates to make sure they feel the same way.
“We haven’t gotten to them yet, but that’s going to motivate us because it was a dramatic loss for us to them this past year,” Collins said. “We’re going to see how the team comes together.”
