Head Coach Nick Saban
Opening Statement
Well it’s obviously good to win. I think the goal of what we are trying to do is improve as a team. You have to give North Texas credit, they did a nice job out there and played hard. Not finishing drives and having situations where we ended up trying field goals and only made two out of four, that’s where we’ve got to score in the red zone and do a better job. There is a great disparity in yards and there was an even greater disparity at halftime and the score should have been different than that, but you’ve got to score touchdowns when you get in the red area. We played pretty good on defense and got a chance to play a lot of players today. It was great to get a shutout. We ran the ball effectively and made some good plays running. We had two guys gain over 150 yards, I think that is pretty good. We also have to get rid of the negative plays. I think the big message here is every time you don’t pay attention to detail, every time you don’t do the little things right, the consequences can be bad. That’s happening too many times and we need to get that cleaned up in every part of the game but most especially on offense in terms of some of the bad plays we’re making. There are things that we can block and there are things that we should block. We’ve just got to do a better job of executing what we do. It’s time to play in the SEC and we wanted to eliminate some of the deficiencies on our team. I think in some areas we did, but there are also some areas that we need to continue to improve.
On defense holding it late in the game
That was some real coaching going on there now because we had a lot of second- and third-team guys in there. [We] lined up wrong a couple of times, didn’t have certain guys covered at times. [We] not only held them once, but held them twice, because we had them at third down and got a pass interference. I never think it’s pass interference, so I’m going to complain about that all the time, whether it was or it wasn’t. I’m not criticizing the officials, but we gave it to them first and two at the two. You’ve got to like the way the players competed, and I think our other players were excited for them. They did a great job of keeping them out of the end zone, and sort of kept the shutout.
On Arkansas and how the players should expect the level of play to change
I don’t think the level of play should change. If you’re playing to be the best you can be, does who you’re playing determine how you play? That’s not how we coach. That’s not how we try to get our players to make commitment to a standard of excellence. Now obviously Arkansas has a very good team, so we’re going to have to execute a lot better, but your effort, your mental and physical toughness, all those things should be at the same level all the time if you’re playing the way you’re supposed to play to be to the best kind of player you can be. That was the challenge, and what we asked everybody to do in this game was challenge yourself to become a better player. To be a better player. Play your best game. Some guys played pretty well out there and I don’t think some guys played as well as they could. We need to get those things corrected because we’re going to play a lot better football teams than what we’ve played to this point.
On the play of Kenny Bell and the other wide receivers, and Robert Lester’s injury update
I think the receivers have made progress and improved throughout the year. I think they’re getting more confident. I think we’re getting more production. I think that having [Darius] Hanks back, probably gives a little stability. Christion Jones has done a nice job of developing as a player, who has some speed and explosiveness and can be helpful to us. Kenny Bell has become much more consistent for us. We made significant improvement at the receiver. Robert Lester gets back spasms every now and then. He got bent back a little bit on the play. That’s what he has is back spasms.
On offense losing energy at the end of the second half
We change a lot of people in games like this and I think it affects the momentum of the game. I thought Phillip [Sims] did a lot of good things out there. We changed quarterbacks, we changed tackles, we changed center. We changed a lot of things, and that’s for the development of our team. I’d like to stand here and say that those things don’t effect anybody and we don’t want it to effect anybody and we don’t expect it to effect anybody, but the fact of the matter is sometimes when you don’t have that continuity, you lose a little something. I was very, very disappointed in not being able to finish. We had three opportunities in the first half, in the red zone, and made two field goals and missed one. We didn’t finish drives like we need to, which would have made a huge difference in the game. Getting stopped on third and one, two minute before the half, and we have a chance to score a touchdown, and then end up missing the field goal. Those are things that you’re stealing scores, you’re trying to take the clock and the game there. Again, it’s lack of execution. They didn’t run a new defense. It’s not something we couldn’t block, we just didn’t do it right.
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