Alabama Head Coach Nick Saban
Opening statement:
“I’m really proud of the way our players battled this game. We certainly did a lot of things that continued to give them opportunities in the game, but I think we played great offensively. Bryce (Young) played really well in the game. We stopped ourselves in the red zone. Fumbled the ball on the two-yard line, get a penalty when we’re down deep in the red zone, then take a sack and then miss a field goal. We left a lot of points on the board where we could put the game away.
“Defensively, we gave up a couple of big plays, but the big thing was they were like 10 of 19 on third and fourth down, so when we had opportunities to get off the field, we didn’t get off the field, they extended drives, and in some cases, they led to touchdowns. You know, fake field goal on fourth down. We were trying to cover the guy and we ran into the official. They had run a fake field goal against LSU last week, so we actually worked on it and called the defense we wanted to play against it and still got rubbed off and didn’t make the play. There’s a lot of good things and there’s a lot of things we obviously need to fix, most of which we can fix but I think the players have to be dedicated and determined to try to get it right so we can play better in the future.
“We won the (SEC) West today, so we have an opportunity now to play in the SEC Championship game. Playing in the West this year was very difficult. We won some close games; we won a close game today. Resiliency of the players contribute to that. Their competitive spirit and how much it means to them contributes to that, but we do need to fix some of the things we’re not getting correct on the field.”
Arkansas Head Coach Sam Pittman
Opening statement:
“Well, we obviously played a really good team tonight in The University of Alabama. They’re a very, very physical football team. Obviously, they have a Heisman Trophy candidate throwing the ball, and they did an outstanding job. Jameson Williams is a special, special player. I was very proud of the way that we kept coming back and the physicality of our program. We did not come here to lose by seven. We came here to win the game, and I think you can see that by the way that we played. We just ran into a team that was seven points better than us tonight, and they had their team ready to play. Congratulations to Alabama, I believe they won the West tonight.”
