Will Anderson addresses knee injury, how he's feeling now

After a knee injury 10 days ago against Mercer, Alabama star linebacker Will Anderson was questionable to play against Florida on Saturday. Despite the setback, the junior had a great game and earned SEC Defensive Player of the Week recognition for the first time. 

When Anderson was asked about his injury Monday, his answer was consistent with his big day in the 31-29 win over the Gators. 

“It feels great,” Anderson said. “It feels better than it did last week, and I’m just keeping doing my rehab and training to get better for each week.”

Anderson finished Saturday’s contest with seven total tackles, two tackles for loss and a quarterback hurry. The sophomore has 19 tackles on the season, which is tied for second on the team. 

Alabama will need Anderson to continue to progress, especially since they face Ole Miss and Texas A&M back-to-back on Oct. 2 and Oct. 9. They host Southern Miss on Saturday.

Saban: Alabama players didn’t adapt

Alabama’s defense struggled to contain Florida quarterback Emory Jones on Saturday. Jones threw for 195 yards and an interception, but also had a touchdown and 77 yards on the ground behind 19 attempts. Running back Malik Davis also had 86 yards and a touchdown on 10 carries. As a team, Florida ran for 245 yards and four touchdowns on 43 carries. Florida’s comeback and Alabama’s late game struggles came from a lack of execution on defense, according to Saban.

“Well, we didn’t execute,” Saban said to reporters on Monday. “I think there was maybe one time where we had a pressure on, and they ran a speed option or something and we didn’t have enough guys there. But it really came down to executing. It really came down to players. They did some different things, but you have to adapt to those things on principle and at times we didn’t do that very well. We weren’t very aggressive, we didn’t get off the field on third down, especially in the second half.”

While the players ultimately control their play on the field, Saban took some blame for not having his team ready to defend the option correctly. That is a big part of Florida’s offense, and can be one of the trickiest things to defend in football.

“I think there were times in the game where we didn’t play the option correctly,” Saban said. “Therefore, as coaches we’re responsible for that so we need to do a better job with all the players being able to do that and have a better understanding of how to do that.”

On’s 3 Jonathan Wagner contributed to this report.