TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Nick Saban will admittedly tell you that he still doesn’t have a definitive read on what is his fifth Alabama football team. He likes this team’s effort, the way it’s competed and the way it’s played as one. He would still like to see it play smarter and with more precision. Chances are the No. 3-ranked Crimson Tide will have to on Saturday when they dive into SEC play against No. 14-ranked Arkansas. Through three games, Alabama has been tested only once and pulled away from Penn State for a 27-11 victory the second week of the season at Beaver Stadium. The Crimson Tide overwhelmed outmanned foes Kent State and North Texas in their other two contests. Saban, whose Alabama teams have won 22 of their last 23 games at Bryant-Denny Stadium, sat down with ESPN.com earlier this week for a wide-ranging interview: How much do you know about your team at this point? Nick Saban: Not a lot … yet. The only time they’ve really had to play like you want to see them play was up at Penn State, and they competed well. We didn’t always execute. We’ve got a lot of things we can improve on, just paying attention to detail and the execution. But the effort, the toughness, how hard they play, how hard they compete … they’re good about that. But it’s the attention to detail and execution that we have to improve on. When you do the little things right, it usually works pretty well. And when you don’t, it doesn’t work so well, especially on defense. Your defense leads the country in limiting teams to 2.52 yards per play, but the structure of this defense is different than your last couple of defenses, isn’t it? NS: We’re not as good up front. We don’t have the dominant pass-rusher, but we have more play-making kind of guys, guys that can make plays, but not a dominant up-front guy. We’ve tried to use some different guys, mostly in pass-rush situations. Those guys (up front) play the run all right. But in pass-rush situations, we don’t have the guy inside that can make the difference. How has AJ McCarron ’s progression at quarterback gone in your mind? NS: He’s done a lot of good things for us, but he still sometimes plays like a young quarterback. He’ll make a good pass, and you’ll say, ‘Hey, this guy is really good,’ and then all of a sudden, he’ll do something dumb and you’ll say, ‘He’s still a young quarterback.’ Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino is one of the best offensive minds in the game, and his offenses are about as multiple as it gets. How much do you think the Hogs have shown on offense this season? NS: They kind of do what they do. They don’t hold back. I think his theory is more, ‘I’m going to throw all these multiples out there and make you have to prepare for this myriad of things,’ half of which you’re not going to see in the game. But it’s going to keep you from practicing what you are going to see very much, because he has so much stuff. They don’t do it in every game. He picks what he’s going to do against you. Just like last year, we practiced our [butt] off against an empty backfield, and they didn’t go empty against us one time in the game, I don’t think. But up until that time, they’d been empty all over the lot. So, you take all that time we practiced against empty, and we should have been practicing against something else. You’ve said several times that there are no other horizons for you in coaching. Five years in, how content are you here at Alabama? NS: We’re really happy here. You always have tons of challenges. College football has tons of challenges, especially from year to year because of the number of players you lose, guys go out for the draft and you’re not ready to replace them. The fun of it is building and getting to that point that it’s so challenging. But then it gets to be a little bit of a grind when everybody’s expectation is that you’ve got to win every game. It’s like nothing is ever good enough. You just have to keep trying to set the bar a little bit higher and higher, as well as the standard, and it gets to be a little bit of a grind because you feel like expectations will never get met. Alabama is one of those places that as soon as you win a national championship, everybody wants to know when you’re going to win your next one. How do you deal with such dizzying expectations? NS: The way I manage it is that my expectations for what we want to accomplish are higher than anybody else’s.

Originally posted here:
Alabama’s Nick Saban unplugged