Nick Saban opens up on Alabama's lack of returning experience

Alabama heads into 2023 with a younger, inexperienced squad compared to the last two seasons, but it isn’t worrying those in T-Town. This is actually an annual occurrence for the Crimson Tide.

To Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban, major roster turnover has been an issue for Alabama for years before the transfer portal. They’d all leave to go to the pros and leave the Crimson Tide with their budding former five-star recruits. It’s been a rinse-and-repeat process for years, and Alabama always adapts. Though, there can always be a downside to throwing younger players straight to the wolves.

“I think experience matters, I really do, but I also think that when you have young players who are hungry and have great energy and enthusiasm, that’s helpful to the team chemistry as well,” Saban said. “When you have as many people that go out for the Draft early — and I’m not complaining about that — I love it when we have players that are good enough to go out for the Draft.

“You’re going to sort of always have a young team because you have four or five starters who would be coming back that all of a sudden are not back.”

The obvious question mark for Alabama remains at the quarterback position. Who is going to be Bryce Young‘s successor? And are they ready to fill the shoes of arguably the greatest QB in Alabama football history? Saban has a few options to choose from, but whoever it ends up being will benefit from an improved offensive line and a more experienced wide receiving corps.

The same could be said for the defense, which lost its identity in Will Anderson to the NFL Draft as well. Someone is going to have to step up as the heart and soul of the Alabama team. With this young squad, it could be anyone.

“One of the things that I tell all of our coaches and the players, our entire team, [is that] it’s really important that we develop the young players on our team because we are always going to have a young team and those guys need to be able to contribute early on,” Saban said.

“So their development is critical to us having a successful team, and we do have some good, young players. I think the challenge is for us as coaches to be able to help those guys develop to where they can play winning football.”

In reality, Alabama will likely be just fine playing their younger talent. Many expect they’ll cruise to another 10-plus win season and will look to surpass those pesky Georgia Bulldogs that have uprooted the Crimson Tide’s status as the nation’s standard over the past two years. If they meet again in the SEC Championship, both teams should prepare for a slobber-knocker.