Nick Saban expresses frustration with Alabama's 'undisciplined' penalties

On3 imageby:Simon Gibbs09/23/21

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Through three games in the 2021 season, the Alabama Crimson Tide have gone 3-0 and maintained their No. 1 ranking, but as head coach Nick Saban explained on the SEC Coaches Teleconference, there’s still plenty to improve upon — penalties being the top priority.

One of the biggest weaknesses Saban sees in his Alabama team hasn’t lost them a game, at least not yet. But the penalties battle is one the Crimson Tide have yet to win.

In a 44-13 win over Miami in Week 1, Alabama committed eight penalties for 81 yards, while Miami had seven for 75 yards. Week 2 saw Alabama erase Mercer to the tune of a 48-14 victory, but the Crimson Tide still couldn’t win the penalty game, notching nine penalties for 95 yards, while Mercer had just seven penalties for 54 yards. Lastly, in a game that Saban and Alabama nearly saw slip through their hands, Alabama committed a season-worst 11 penalties for 75 penalty yards, compared to Florida’s seven penalties for 67 yards.

“I think it’s a great issue. When you get penalties you put yourself behind the down and distance and when you get them on defense, you give the other team opportunities,” Saban said on the teleconference. “There’s two kinds of penalties. There’s lack of focus, lack of discipline penalties, whether it’s offsides, false starts, illegal formations. Those types of penalties you definitely want to clean up. And then there’s some penalties that are full speed guys are playing and they get a penalty. I mean, they’re not acceptable, but those may happen a little more often. I think if you can eliminate the undisciplined penalties, you’d probably eliminate half the penalties that we’ve had.”

It’s a problem that hasn’t cost Saban just yet. But it almost did against Florida, as the Crimson Tide nearly blew the lead and won just 31-29. On Wednesday, Saban expressed an immense sense of frustration with the penalties, a problem that seems solvable.

Several penalties against Florida could be described as “lack of focus” or “lack of discipline” penalties that Saban mentioned. However, it’s tough to blame the Crimson Tide players for racking up four false start penalties in Gainesville. The stadium was so loud that the offensive linemen may not have been able to hear the hard count clearly.

Alabama’s penalty total has increased from game to game; the problem has gotten worse, not better. Against Mercer, when Alabama played a sloppy, penalty-ridden game, Saban said that if anyone felt frustrated by the penalties, he was ten-times more frustrated.