Everything Nick Saban said on Wednesday of Auburn game week

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Alabama head coach Nick Saban spoke to reporters after Wednesday’s practice as the Crimson Tide continues to prepare for its Week 13 game against the Auburn Tigers. Below is everything Saban said in his final press conference before game day.

Saban’s opening statement…

“So, first off, let me just take a second to wish everybody a Happy Thanksgiving. I know this is a great time of the year to have gratitude and give thanks for all the things that we have. I know we all spend a lot of time thinking about the things that we want and maybe not appreciating the things that we have — relationships and all the other things in the world that we work hard to try to accomplish. Hopefully, everybody has an opportunity to do that and has an enjoyable and Happy Thanksgiving.

“This is a very special, competitive situation, the Iron Bowl. Auburn has a very good team. I know in rivalry games, things are always going to be very, very competitive. I don’t think records or any of that stuff really matters when it comes to what happens in this game.

“I think for our players, it’s what do you choose to pay attention to? There are a lot of things out there, in rivalry games, that can get your attention, but we have a plan and everybody has to know the plan, whether it’s offense, defense, special teams or whatever. We have a process that we’ve been working on how to execute that plan for a long time, all season long, so hopefully we focus on the process of what we have to do to execute it. Then we have to have a sense of purpose for, why is it important to be able to have an opportunity to be successful in that game so that we can stay focused on the right stuff.

“That’s my message to the guys, and that’s what I’d like for them to stay focused on because, at the end of the day, it’s going to be what happens on the field. I think it’s always been in this game — people talk about all the things that have happened, but basically, in my experience, the team that plays the best is the team that has the best chance to be successful, and that’s the way it’s always worked out in the past.”

Saban on Deontae Lawson, Jaylen Key…

“They both practiced quite a bit this week. We’ll just see how they continue to progress.”

Saban on coaching against Hugh Freeze… 

“He’s, to me, one of the best offensive coaches in the country in terms of taking the personnel and the players he has and doing what he needs to do to help them be successful. They present a lot of multiples that give you problems to try and stay gap sound against the run and they’ve done a good job all year with it. So our players are going to have to be zeroed in on making the adjustments that we need to make, and I’m sure we’ll probably see something different in the game than what we practiced. But I think Hugh’s one of the best, most difficult preparations that we have when we play against his offenses.” 

Saban on stopping Auburn running back Jarquez Hunter… 

“It’s a little bit of what I just said about staying in the right places and adjusting correctly to the formations and motions and adjustments and unbalanced and all that kind of stuff. But this guy runs hard. He’s physical. He’s hard to tackle. Good tackling is really important in playing good defense anytime, so being gap sound, everybody doing their job and playing disciplined, responsibility football and doing a good job of tackling but getting more than one guy to the ball so we can clean up the tackles and not let this guy get yards after contact.” 

Saban on Alabama’s Thanksgiving plans… 

“We move everything up an hour tomorrow so that the players that live in a two-hour radius — we’ll be done at 4:30-ish — and they got a chance to go home and have Thanksgiving with their family, take other players if they want. The coaches, including Miss Terry and I, have players who don’t have a place to go, we have them over to our house. So I think we’ll have about 15 players at our house to join our family for Thanksgiving. 

“Then we come back and usually do one real after practice on Thursday, we don’t do that till Friday when players come back and then we have a Thanksgiving dinner for all the families, players and coaches alike on Friday, I think around noon. And then at one o’clock, we start the process of meetings and walk-throughs and things that we would normally have on Friday and get ready to travel and get ready to roll. So that’s kind of the adjustments that we make relative to Thanksgiving.” 

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