Alabama football earned its seventh victory of the season against Mississippi State.
The focus has since shifted to getting players healthy over the bye week. Alabama looks to have Bryce Young, Tyler Harrell, and some defensive players ready to go against Louisiana State University. Nick Saban is one for rest, recovery, and relaxation, but the Crimson Tide’s head coach is also about improvement. On Tuesday, he spoke to reporters at the Monday Morning Quarterback in Birmingham (Ala.) about how the Tide is approaching its off week. A lot of self-scouting will be done to help Alabama get better.
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“You have to do quality control on offense, defense, and special teams as well as individual player evaluations to find out what does this guy need to do,” Saban said. “It is about what do we need to do on offense, what do we need to do on defense, what do we need to improve on. Some of it is relative to the games you have coming up, but some of it is relative to what you need to do better to play winning football. The bye week does not change, administratively at least, how many times we practice, how long we practice, or what we do in practice. That gets determined by what we need to do.”
Alabama will focus a lot on its rushing attack, wide receivers, and defense.
Saban has mentioned in postgame pressers about the inconsistency to take the air out of games by running the ball. The Tide will perform a lot of fundamental, camp-like drills while starting to prepare for LSU, Mississippi, Austin Peay, and Auburn to round out its regular-season schedule. Alabama can run the table in the SEC West to a conference championship and the College Football Playoff. It has to win out and regain the dominant mental edge over opponents. Hopefully, the bye week will be good.
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Stephen M. Smith is the managing editor and senior writer for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can “like” him on Facebook or “follow” him on Twitter, via @CoachingMSmith.
