Nick Saban explains difficulty in defending Tennessee

Alabama head coach Nick Saban spoke on Wednesday about the difficulty involved with defending Tennessee in regards to their running game. No. 4 Alabama will host Tennessee on Saturday, and Saban is preparing his defense for a good offense.

Nick Saban on Tennessee’s offense

“I think that they go fast, so people have to get lined up and be ready to play,” Saban said of what troubles him when facing Tennessee’s offense. “I think they’ve got a really good runner. And I think their quarterback’s ability to run contributes to that.

“In terms of quarterback run — so when they run the zone play he’s very capable if you try to cheat the end on the dive, [the] quarterback’s gonna pull the ball. They’ve been very effective at doing that and they’re very well coached so they don’t usually do it and make bad plays. They usually do it and make very positive plays. They’ve got quarterback runs, they’ve got quarterback draws — they get you spread out and run those plays which is very challenging for the people up front.

“And they’ve got ability to throw the ball so you can’t just say we’re going to play the quarterback runs because they’ve made a lot of explosive plays in the passing game because [of] the vertical stretch of the field — and when they get you spread out, they’ll spit it out there if you don’t have enough guys out there and make positive plays as well. So this offense is very challenging.”

Tennessee’s offense has produced 249 yards per game on the ground this season and 473 yards of total offense while averaging 39 points per game. As Saban detailed, Tennessee’s offense gets to the line of scrimmage quickly with their high-tempo style of play.

Saban’s focus will be on making sure the Crimson Tide come into the game with discipline in their assignments, and that they’re prepared to be in a hurry while the Volunteers have the football.

Alabama’s defensive injuries

Alabama head coach Nick Saban offered an update on a number of injuries that the Crimson Tide defense is dealing with heading into Saturday’s game against Tennessee.

After stating defensive lineman Byron Young was day-to-day with a shoulder issue earlier in the week, it appears the veteran defensive lineman has taken positive developments coming back from the injury as he practiced on Wednesday.

“Byron Young has practiced,” Saban said on Wednesday. “He practiced today. We’re hopeful he’ll be able to contribute some in the game.

Linebacker Drew Sanders remains doubtful for Saturday’s game against Tennessee. The second-year freshman has not played since Alabama’s win over Ole Miss at the beginning of the month.

“Drew Sanders is probably very doubtful for this game,” Saban said. “But we’re very hopeful that maybe he’ll be — with the bye week coming up in another week — it just depends. They got to re-X-ray his wrist and make sure that everything is ok in there and we’re hopeful that he’ll be back for LSU.”

Last week against Mississippi State, Daniel Wright started at free safety in place of DeMarcco Hellams. Saban stated the reason for the change was due to an ankle injury Hellams is struggling with.

“DeMarcco’s been struggling with kinda a lingering ankle injury from all the way back from fall camp,” Saban said. “I thought that — he’s been a warrior all year long. Fighting through this. Battling in practice. Overcoming adversity every way that he could. Doing everything that he could to help the team. But I also think that — if he can’t play 100 percent in some circumstances then we should try to protect him, and give him an opportunity to have a chance to get back to 100 percent, which we’ve tried to cut down his reps the last couple of weeks.

“We still have every confidence in him playing in the game and he will play in games and he may even start in the game — because we view him as a starter,” Saban said. “But last week, especially against the spread offense that we were playing against, we wanted to make sure we had fast healthy guys out there that could cover people and cover ground and break on the ball. And DeMarcco does those things extremely well but you gotta be 100 percent to do that and we’re trying to get him there.”