Saban warns Alabama that LSU is similar but better team than Tennessee

Nick Saban feels the Alabama football team has to be more locked in than ever to pull off a win on the road against LSU.

The legendary head coach gave his thoughts on the upcoming game during an interview on “The Pat McAfee Show.”

“I think the big thing with Keelon Russell is in the last couple of weeks he’s had more turnovers, got sacked more,” Saban said. “Alabama is going to get the center back, which will help. They’ll get Ryan Coleman-Williams back, which will help. They get the nose guard back on defense, which will help. But this going to LSU and playing is you got to have a special maturity as a team to be able to be, I mean, on top of your focus to go in there and be able to play, to overcome, you know, the noise, the circumstance. And LSU’s got a very good team. So, you’re going to have to overcome a lot, and that’s going to have to take a lot of maturity on their part. Now, they didn’t show they could do that at Tennessee, and to me, LSU is a little bit of a similar team. In terms of they’re going to play good defense. They’re going to pressure the quarterback a lot, which Alabama is going to have to handle. And these guys can put points on the board even better than Tennessee. So this is going to be a big, big challenge for Alabama. And they’ve had a bye week. Hopefully they get some of these players back and get some of these issues fixed. And Keelon Russell can play with a little more consistency in terms of it’s okay to punt. I used to tell the quarterback all the time, if every drive ends with a kick, we’re okay. Punt, field goal, extra point. But you don’t have to try to make plays that aren’t there and that turn into negative plays that just kill you in the game.”

Alabama will look to pick up a pivotal win against LSU on Saturday.