Saban: Bama needs better players

Ken Rogers, Media General News Service
Published: January 5, 2009

NEW ORLEANS — A new season is here for the Alabama football program.

Recruiting season. And Nick Saban is determined to finish strong.

Minutes after his team lost, 31-17, in Friday night’s Allstate Sugar Bowl, Saban talked about the need for more — and better — players.

“We need more good players, more depth in the program,” Saban said. “We need quality big people. We need quality skill guys. We need a lot of things for us to continue to improve to be the kind of program that is recognized as kind of a dominant program on a national level.”

The fastest way to do that, Saban knows, is through recruiting. He’s on pace to follow last year’s top-ranked class with another outstanding one. The result of last year’s class was on display all season.

Receiver Julio Jones, linebacker Dont’a Hightower and running back Mark Ingram contributed immediately and were in the spotlight. But the class was just as good as it was supposed to be.

“We played, I think, 16 total freshmen this year, 14 that played enough to letter,” Saban said. “So we had a lot of young players on this team.

“We had nine seniors on this team. The seniors did a great job for this team. But we need to continue to improve as a program for the future.”

In the quest for big players who can make an impact, Saban’s signing of mammoth nose tackle Terrence Cody proved he’ll even go the junior college route if he finds the right players.

The need for help along the offensive front was on display against Utah. John Parker Wilson was sacked eight times and pressured many more.

“We’re still building quality depth on our team,” the coach said. “We lost two of our three best offensive linemen in this game.”

Outland Trophy winner Andre Smith was suspended for the game. Junior left guard Mike Johnson, who started for Smith at tackle, had a poor start before leaving with a sprained right ankle.

“The tough thing is, going down like that and throwing in a couple of guys that haven’t really practiced at all,” Johnson said in the Alabama locker room after the game.

“It’s tough to watch. When I came in here (to the locker room), I had them lay me down right in front of the TV so I could watch the game. It’s one of the worst feelings you could have to have to sit there and watch your team struggle like that. It’s tough.”

The secondary couldn’t stop Utah’s spread offense, led by quarterback Brian Johnson.

“This is the best quarterback we played against all year, systematically,” Saban said, who said as the spread continues to grow that Alabama may have to change how it defends it.

“It is a difficult match-up for us, four and five receivers in the game,” the coach said. “You know, systematically, we will have to do some things different in the future.”

Junior running back Glen Coffee said Alabama’s failure to end the season with a victory “puts a damper on the season.”

“You can make it sound good, like a Cinderella story, but still, we didn’t finish,” Coffee said. “That’s something we’ve got to live with for the rest of our lives.”

With so many players returning, Coffee said closing out the 2008 campaign with losses to Florida in the SEC Championship Game and to undefeated Utah in the Sugar Bowl will keep the team hungry in the offseason.

“Unfortunately, we’ve got something negative to look at,” Coffee said. “As a man, you’ve got to look at something that’s negative and try to turn it into a positive. I think that’s definitely what we want to do.”