Written by Ell | 09 September 2008

If you listened or watched Monday's press conference, you heard much of what you always hear when Nick Saban speaks. "We need to work with intensity and focus". "Good teams aren't complacent". "At home, Terry is the boss". We'll try and get past that to the real substance in our semi-regular feature Beyond Coachspeak. The transcription is courtesy the University (via rolltide.com) On John Parker Wilson Saban opened with a discussion about the passing game, but that quickly devolved into a defense of Wilson:

We had a couple opportunities on offense but we missed a couple big plays. We had guys open, we overthrew them. Early in the game I don't think the pass protection was what it needed to be. But I also think that we didn't play well in the passing game as a group. The receivers didn't run good routes, we didn't play fast, we missed a hot, we missed a pick up by a back, it was all not just the offensive line. The receiver breaks hot when he is not hot. You're counting on your guys doing what they are supposed to be doing so you have a chance to execute and once that doesn't happen that puts a lot of doubt in people's minds. I don't think we executed very well. If you are going to play well at quarterback the people around you need to execute well. I don't think we got enough consistency in that for anyone to play well at that position and they didn't do anything different than we prepared for and I am sure that if you asked John Parker (Wilson) he would say he could play a lot better but at the same time the people around him need to help him play better too. We need to show a little more leadership as a group so that if we do flatten out we can bounce out of it. The one thing that I did see is there was no negative attitude on the sidelines. We may not have had the enthusiasm that we needed, we may not have had the intensity we needed but the players worked hard to fight through it and they sustained it and that is probably why we found a way to win.

An interesting perspective from the coach, as he explains the myriad things that went wrong in the passing game and how all that contributes to the perception of the quarterback. Some of this wasn't hard to see in real time. Backs weren't picking up blitzes. The line was, at times, totally porous. Receivers breaking off hot routes is a bit more complex. For the uninitiated, if a receiver recognizes a blitz, then he should "break hot". That is a specific route that a receiver is designated to run based on package, play or formation. If the quarterback reads blitz and the receiver does not (or vice versa), then the receiver is in a different place than expected by the quarterback. That will inevitably mean things don't go as smoothly. As Saban put it:

You're counting on your guys doing what they are supposed to be doing so you have a chance to execute and once that doesn't happen that puts a lot of doubt in people's minds.

In the simplest terms, when you look for a receiver someplace on one play and he's not there, you're not confident he'll be where he needs to be on the next play. That means you have less confidence and everything is a lot more shaky. On Rolando McClain:

He played really well in the last game. His leadership is something that is a real positive for the defensive team. I think he affects the other players in terms of how he plays. He has played two really good football games. He had over 30 production points in this last game which is a lot of production in one game. He makes his few mistakes like most of the guys do and there are certainly things that he needs to continue to work on but that is the one thing he usually does. He is a conscientious guy. He likes to get it right and he wants to understand what his job is and he goes out there and tries to do it.

When Saban talks about "production points" he's referring to a grading system that the coaches use to determine how well a defensive player produces. Former Purdue coach Joe Tiller explains:

We have a performance chart where we keep track of production points. We grade out players after the game on their technique, effort, and the number of plays made. We give production points for positive and negative production. We will always have players who rarely do anything technically right but still make plays. Those guys can have a huge number of production points. When a player sees his production points posted, he can tell what he needs to focus on. If he has minus 10 production points in a game, obviously, he didn't play very well and made some mistakes.

Different coaches use different systems to determine production points, and there's no way to tell exactly what Saban, Kirby Smart and Kevin Steele use to evaluate the Tide's defense. However, it's clear that McClain is a standout in those numbers. And those numbers don't tell the whole story on McClain. Everyone expected McClain to play well this year, but his contributions in leadership of the new linebackers - particularly without Prince Hall on the field - has been remarkable. In the first two games, he's constantly talking with Dont'a Hightower before and after plays to make sure he's in the right place and doing the right things. That's precisely the kind of leadership Saban wants and needs. On Javier Arenas: This part didn't make the official transcript, which is sad, because Saban is really kind of funny describing Arenas's punt return:

We were in punt safe - really up there defending with the defense and not the punt return team. Now, we do have a return out of that - everybody has somebody to hold up. To the defense's credit, they did a really good job of doing that... When he popped out the back door, I'm saying "what is he doing," because I'm thinking he's going to lose ground. All of a sudden, two steps later, you say "he could go all the way..." So, he does surprise me.

The classic "no! NO! NO! YESSS!!!" reaction... The fact that Arenas returned that kick while we were in punt safe makes the return even more incredible. Punt safe means we're expecting (or at least protecting against) a fake punt. We will engage more at the line of scrimmage and we'll have less players darting back to block on the return. It probably also explains this (from Roll Bama Roll): Yep, that's Terrence Cody leading Javier Arenas down the sideline. I noticed this when it happened, and it was not early in the return. That leads us nicely into Saban's next point. On Terrence Cody:

But Terrence was a guy that certainly had the size and initial quickness. We knew what his problem was in terms of conditioning relative to his ability to sustain and that was our big issue. Stevon Moore, who is the defensive coordinator at Gulf Coast [Community College], played for us at the Cleveland Browns and was a very good player, very strong, tried to help us a little bit to get him in shape and not get to out of whack relative to his weight so that when he came here and reported we would get him to a point where he could play and sustain. He did a good job of that, Terrence did a good job of that, hence we got him down to 365. Still we would like to improve that part of his game and he is working hard on that and we are working hard with him to try and do it.

Despite how incredible Cody has been since he got here, we'd still like him to drop a few pounds. Good news is Cody continues to work on that and get lighter - at least in some measure. It's remarkable that Cody was able to find his way here. Saban's defense is a perfect fit for him (and vice versa). As we've discussed ad nauseum, the idea in the 3-4 we run is to have linemen eat space and allow the linebackers to be playmakers. Cody does exactly that. Mel Kiper has noted that Cody is "on the radar" for the 2009 Draft. This is bad news for fans of Alabama football. It's likely he'll be around one season, then play in the NFL next year. The true test of this will be in two weeks when Terrence Cody faces off with last year's Rimington Award winning center Johnathan Luigs at Arkansas. If Cody is able to dominate - or even hold his own - against that competition, he'll go early in the first round. On the freshmen:

This is not premeditated, if they practiced they are playing because they deserve to play because they are the better guys, they are the better back up, so we have to go ahead and make a choice to play them on special teams or at their position. I would like to get to the point where we redshirt most of our freshmen and only have a few guys that go out there each year to play because you have enough depth on your team that you don't have to play them. I think this year some of these guys are playing because they deserve to play based on the competition and because we were thin which created a great opportunity for them.

Saban doesn't want to play freshmen. Saban lives to tell the story of Travis Daniels, and he recounted it in the press conference again on Monday. Daniels was a freshman at LSU, and had not played heading into the SEC Championship Game. An injury in the secondary meant they needed another back, and Daniels was forced into action - meaning he lost an entire year of eligibility. So, Saban doesn't want to play freshmen, but really will if he feels like it gives the team the best chance to win. With Alabama's talent situation, we clearly must play freshmen, but eventually we'll be in a spot where upperclassmen can contribute more (as Saban's recruits age), and we'll redshirt more. Alabama's lack of depth and the large number of freshmen playing is a constant storyline in the media. We do have true freshman playing big roles on the team. But it should be noted that despite that fact, we're still set to redshirt 10-15 players (as of this moment), including some of the more sought after players. Whether that remains the case is only known to Coach Saban.

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