Nick Saban Job Quotations

We felt like he did a good job in going in and playing significantly in the last game when Jason got hurt. There is nobody disappointed in his performance. That's where you have to be careful about stats. How many opportunities did he have that he didn't make? That would be a better assessment of what he has or hasn't done.

Would we rather have been in a situation where we didn't have to call timeout by having the best block team that we could on the field? Absolutely, but that wasn't the case, ... I felt that it was an important enough situation in the game, because our guys do a pretty good job inside of getting penetration, to get the right guys in there to do the best job of trying to get the kick blocked.

Ricky did a fantastic job for us this year. If someone said, 'Who have you enjoyed coaching the most in all my years of football,' he'd be one of the top guys I've ever been around.

Nobody in this room, with all of our power and might put together, can have anything to do with where it goes. What we can try to do is have something to do with preparing for the game and doing our job well and having pride in the performance of what we have to do.

One of the most difficult parts of my job is having to release players, and the past week has emphasized this fact. This is especially true when those players made significant contributions to the success of the team in the past. Ideally, we would like to keep many of those players on our roster, but we are simply not able to do that.

I don't know that tradition has ever won or lost a game. As far as I can tell, the field they have up there is 53 yards wide and 100 yards deep. They'll play 11. We'll play 11. The game will be decided on who does the best job of blocking and tackling and dominating the guys they play against.

He has continued to do a good job every time he's been out there, ... and I think that's something that's got to be taken into consideration.

Gus has a good understanding of the offense, he's very knowledgeable. And I think (he) can manage the game the best with a pretty young offensive team right now. . . . We weren't displeased with the job any of the quarterbacks did, but we felt that Gus would give us the best opportunity to be successful.

Lamar did a good job for us here. He worked hard. When you look at some of these circumstances, everybody has to have a role on the team. Some of the guys at that position are very good special teams contributors, and that certainly played a role in the backs that we've selected.

I think those are the kinds of decisions we would certainly like to have some input into. Our goal and focus is, number one, to respect the player. Ricky did an outstanding job for us on the field. Secondly, (we want to) respect the decision of the league, relative to what they felt it was necessary to do.

Jason has had a great camp and has done a great job in every regard. He's probably one of the guys who has had a lot more to learn because he's never really played that position as a professional player. He's playing a combination of two positions right now, but he's done a tremendous job of adapting and making plays.

Managing the game is the most important thing. Gus has done a pretty good job of that. Turnovers are not killing us. We won the turnover battle in the games that we won and we didn't in the one that we lost.

We didn't do what we needed to do to get a stop. We have to do a better job as coaches getting our players ready so we have a better chance to be successful in those situations and we have to be more consistent in the way we perform.

We all like winning. The fun of this is a job well done. The purpose of what we do is to have success. We focused a lot this year on the process of what you need to do to be successful. I think this team has bought into that and has a belief system that has been beneficial to how we've competed.

We're doing a little better job of getting pass rush with four guys and affecting the quarterback lately.

Even though our offensive line did a really good job this year, it is an area of our team that we may be able to add something to that might enhance it even more, especially with the kind of running backs that we have. I don't think we have an older guy on our team who is not capable of continuing to play. I think the issue becomes, can they do it and sustain it for the season? Those are the tough decisions that we have to make, but we are going to have to do that with defensive players because we need to get younger.

Ed Perry has done a good job for this organization for a long, long time. I have a lot of respect for him as a player and as a person. But from a business standpoint, it always makes sense to go with the younger guy.

Ronnie did a nice job in the game. I'm sure nobody feels worse about fumbling the ball in the situation at the end of the game than he does and that's something that we'll have to learn and grow from.

Sage obviously did a good job when he was in there. That's something that will certainly be evaluated . . . in terms of who goes where.

You really don't know what's going to be available. There's going to be quite a few players picked before we pick. We have to do a good job making sure we've evaluated all the players ahead and behind where we might pick.

There were too many penalties in the game. We talk about playing hard and competing, but you also have to play smart. That's something we need to do a better job of. We did a lot of good things out there, but they were negated by our errors.

Absolutely. He's done an outstanding job in practice and he finishes every play. He has done everything that anybody could ask of a player. If you asked me, give me the top five guys that are the best practice players, he would be one of them. If Jason Taylor had played in a 3-4 system somewhere, he would have been a Hall of Fame outside linebacker. He's smart and he's got great instincts to learn things, better than I ever hoped for.

It's not really true to (the Bears) character and nature in the past to do that (during an exhibition game), ... But I thought our staff did an outstanding job with adapting in the game. That's probably why we had more success in the second and third quarters than we did in the beginning of the game.

It's something we need to continue to evaluate. It seemed the entire pre-season whichever quarterback has played second has played best. It's the second week in a row we gave Gus the opportunity to start, and A.J. has come in and done a nice job in both of those games in the second half.

It's been wonderful. I really do feel like this was coming home to play a game and it was exciting for me even though I didn't say it (earlier). It was exciting to be back in Tiger Stadium and I feel really great that our team did a nice job to make us proud of how they played.

He's still hard to block. He does a great job of using his hands. He still plays with a lot of power. He still can rush and block people back to the quarterback. He's very instinctive on the field -- batting balls down and making a lot of plays. I think the guy is an astounding player and I think he's had a really good year doing what they expect him to do.

A.J. did a pretty good job when he was in there, ... I want to build on the identity, the attitude. We want our players to overcome adversity in the game.

The guy is very magical with the ball. He has speed and can change direction. He plays with a tremendous amount of toughness for his size and he's done an outstanding job in what he has been able to do in their offense.