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Alex Scarborough, ESPN Staff Writer
Alabama coach Nick Saban expressed a sense of urgency on Monday as his team looks to rebound from a 10-point loss at home to the Texas Longhorns on Saturday.
“The future,” Saban said, “is now.”
The Crimson Tide, who dropped seven spots to No. 10 in the Associated Press Top 25 college football poll, will play at South Florida on Saturday, but Saban spent most of his Monday news conference looking back at the loss to the Longhorns, which snapped what had been the longest active home winning streak in FBS at 21 games.
“I don’t think it’s any huge secret or anything that we did not execute on a consistent enough basis,” Saban said.
He harped on a number of problem areas: too many turnovers, too many penalties, too many mental errors on defense and not enough pressure on the opposing quarterback.
On defense, Alabama didn’t sack the quarterback once, missed seven tackles and gave up six catches of 20 or more yards. On offense, the Crimson Tide averaged only 3.06 yards per rush and allowed pressure on the quarterback on 46.2% of dropbacks.
Quarterback Jalen Milroe threw two long touchdown passes — a 49-yarder to Jermaine Burton and a 39-yarder to Amari Niblack — but he also had two costly interceptions.
The offense as a whole, Saban said, seemed to lack an identity and was “too hit-or-miss” in terms of generating big plays.
Saban said the focus is “100% on how we get it turned around,” putting the onus on the coaches as well as the players.
“I think all these things are fixable,” he said. “We have good players.”
Saban compared the loss to a test early in the semester — one that they didn’t “grade out well” on.
“So what are we going to do to get a better grade?” Saban asked. “I would be shocked if this team didn’t respond in a positive way.”
Alabama will resume SEC play on Sept. 23 at home against No. 17 Ole Miss.